When you open the green one for a Metro, or grab an Ottawa Sun from the red, you might not know that the newspaper boxes you count on every morning are sometimes others’ eyesores.
The latest complaint, revealed in a document obtained through access to information, was made by the former executive director of Glebe BIA last summer.
In an email to the City of Ottawa, Christine Leadman wanted seven newspaper boxes in front of a patio to be removed because they “negatively impact the aesthetics of the exterior perimeter of these businesses.”
The boxes were located on northeastern corner of Bank Street and the Fifth Avenue, right against the patio fence of a café named Roast N Brew.
After leaving the Glebe BIA for nearly one year, Leadman still remembers how much the boxes affected the café. “That nice patio has black fence with tables and chairs, but the newspaper boxes took away the value the place would have,” Leadman says.
Jihad Harb, the former owner of Roast’n Brew, was the one who initially approached Leadman. He started running the café since 2010. He says the boxes didn’t matter too much in the beginning due to the renovation of Bank Street, because “everything was a mess”.
However, he then wanted to make things better. Harb says he tried to put on some trees between the boxes and the fence so that his customers wouldn’t notice the ugly boxes, but he failed.
“Those newspaper boxes were 100 per cent in my way,” Harb says.
The city soon followed up on the complaint. Two weeks later, four of the paper boxes were gone, and the remaining three were relocated on Fifth Avenue at the same street corner.
Although they are no longer in Harb’s way, Leadman says she still thinks they are unnecessary, because too many nearby corner stores sell newspapers.
Leadman says, “It’s just a marketing tool. They are not the main source where people can get newspapers any more.”
However, after paying a visit to each location where newspapers are available in Glebe – from the Glebe Avenue to the Fifth Avenue, Leadman’s opinion is not wholly correct, because not everything is available in the convenience stores.
Shoppers, Metro or even Starbucks, only provide paid newspapers, such as Ottawa Citizen, Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail.
Although Ottawa Sun is a paid one and has its boxes on the street, the other boxes standing beside it are all free, such as Metro, Xtra, as well as other home magazines and business journals.
Please click the red dots to check the locations for newspaper boxes on the street; click the green dots to check the locations convenience stores which sell newspapers.
[Click here for the details of the by-law for newspaper boxes/services boxes.]
Don Muran, one of Metro‘s 18 newspaper guy in the city, has to send out 500 Metro a day.
He says he has tried several times to put his newspaper into Starbucks, but he was finally kicked out because he was told that Starbucks’ other newspaper clients were complaining.
“It’s like an eight-year old is selling lemonade, and another eight-year old is standing beside her and sending lemonade for free. Of course it doesn’t work,” Don says.
However, what Leadman says about the newspaper boxes are “no longer the assets to street” might be true.
Bruce McDonald, who works for the Glebe’s Britten, says he doesn’t consider free newspapers as his competitor for his 15-square-metre store that sells more than 100 magazines and 40 newspapers, he does think the boxes as eyesores.
“Covered with snow, filled with scrapped papers and coffee cups, they are just eyesores in the winter.” McDonald says.
That’s the same reason why Leadman might soon make more complaints about these boxes to the city.
She says right now her job is to clean up the snow on the street, but newspaper boxes could be her next target “depends on their maintenance and location”.
I: EXPLANATION FOR THE FOLLOWING DOCUMENT FROM CITY OF OTTAWA.
This following page is the only useful page in the four pages of records I got from City of Ottawa.
(*) What is the information?
This is a document with two emails regarding to the complaint about the newspaper boxes. The information provides me the name of the original complainant about newspaper boxes in this case, who is Christine Leadman; the location of the original complaint, which is a restaurant with a patio located in Fifth/Bank; as well as the “fixer” from the government, Ermis Durofil, who is the Program Manager of the Right Of Way, Permits & Applications in the City of Ottawa.
(*) From which department and level of government did you obtain these pages?
The City of Ottawa.
(*) Why was this information helpful?
All these information helped me track down the people, their story and a bigger picture of the problems regarding to the city’s newspaper boxes. If I don’t have this document, I wouldn’t have my story.
II: DOCUMENTATION FOR ATIP ASSIGNMENT
Please click the document names to check my records.
| Category | Level | Department | Original Request | Correspondence |
| My Original Request | Federal | Canadian Heritage | Document-CH-R-01 | Document-CH-C-01 |
| Federal | Citizenship and Immigration Canada | Document-CIC-R-01 | Document-CIC-C-01 | |
| Federal | Foreign Affair | Document-FA-R-01 | Document-FA-C-01 | |
| Provincial | Education Department | Document-ED-R-01 | Document-ED-C-01 | |
| City | City of Ottawa | Document-CO-R-01 | Document-CO-C-01 | |
| Previously Released Request | Federal | Citizenship and Immigration Canada | Document-CIC’-R-01 | Document-CIC’-C-01 |
| Federal | Citizenship and Immigration Canada | Document-CIC’-R-02 | Document-CIC’-C-02 | |
| Federal | Citizenship and Immigration Canada | Document-CIC’-R-03 | Document-CIC’-C-03 | |
| Federal | Environment Canada | Document-CIC’-R-04 | Document-CIC’-C-04 |