Back in the day, Reg Hartt could just phone Jane Jacobs and she’d set things right at City Hall. Unfortunately, now that his champion is gone, Hartt’s Bathurst row-house rare film theatre, Cineforum, languishes in undignified closure, or at best a prolonged intermission.[rssbreak]
Two weeks ago, Hartt received a notice of violation from the city’s Licensing and Standards division. At issue was the fact that he’s running his theatre in a residence. Not wishing to tempt “further action,” the quirky film archivist closed his doors.
“It’s not like I can’t go somewhere else,” says a bruised but unbroken Hartt, adding, “But something unique happened here.” “Here” is 463 Bathurst, just south of College, a house with a small neon Cineforum sign in the window.
It’s more likely, however, that you’ve spotted one of his trademark black-and-white posters advertising everything from Sex And Violence cartoon fests to Nosferatu screened with audio by Radiohead to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.
In fact, those signs are probably the reason Hartt’s feeling heat after 15 years of operating without the city breathing down his neck.
“His aggressive self-promotion [read: posters] wouldn’t have made him any friends,” notes ward councillor Adam Vaughan, who hopes to figure out a way Hartt can carry on.
Licensing and Standards chair Howard Moscoe assures me the city didn’t target Cineforum. “The city doesn’t go rooting out people who are violating zoning, so someone must have issued a complaint.”
Likely candidates, says Hartt, who doesn’t make his living from his screenings, are misguided poster-haters at the Toronto Advertising Hall of Shame. A response from Robert Du Ville of that org says he’s unaware of a complaint but points to emails posted on the group’s blog revealing a back-and-forth with Hartt over sign pollution and posting rights.
Moscoe agrees that signs are a problem, but in the city’s eyes, community notices and small theatre groups don’t deserve much attention. “Our sign bylaw is a little behind. As part of the street furniture project, Astral was supposed to erect kiosks for legal sign postings,” he says, adding that Astral’s delay is keeping the city from tackling the huge commercial poster offenders.
Unfortunately, Hartt suggests, he was an easy target. After he was shut down the last time, it only took one call. “I was sitting around drinking beer, watching TV and thinking about how boring it was. So I called Jane Jacobs [who’d been a patron of his since 1968] and asked if she could get the curse lifted.”
That time, in the 90s, it was as easy as calling the head of Licensing and mentioning Jacobs. “They [Licensing] said, ‘We can’t be bothered – just start it back up,'” recalls Hartt. This time will be harder.
Lance Cumberbatch, director of investigation services at Licensing and Standards, lays out the options:
- “Attempt to get a Committee of Adjustment decision in your favour, which means applying for a minor variance. If they say yes, they’ll schedule a hearing and you’re off,” says Cumberbatch. That is, in two to three months.
- Rezoning. “That could be more lengthy.” Cumberbatch figures it could take up to eight months – even more if there’s an election going on.
It’s amazing things ever change, given those kinds of time frames, but the reality is that Cumberbatch sees few of these cases. “Not one a day or even one a month,” he says, confirming that this one definitely stemmed from a complaint. Once a matter like this is in the hands of city bureaucrats, there’s no easy way out.
“There is going to be a give-and-take,” says councillor Vaughan. “You don’t want politicians running around ripping up tickets – that has problems attached to it.”
For one, you’ll get a few angry developers crying “hypocrite.” And that illegal basement nightclub? Its owners will be calling foul, too.
The good news is, Vaughan wants to help. “[Hartt] is a folk hero, so you don’t want to squash him. We just need to figure out how to keep going forward,” he says, indicating that while going through the motions could very well be a pain in the neck, something can be ironed out.
Until then, imagine a Bathurst without the underbelly wackiness of this Toronto institution, a space Hartt describes as part Gertrude Stein’s salon and part Andy Warhol’s Factory wrapped in a Toronto version of Henri Langlois’s original Paris Cinémathèque. That might be romanticizing things, but it would still suck to lose a landmark to a spiteful complaint based on bylaw 438-86.
pault@nowtoronto.com
