Highway 400 signs that had been up since 2014 — directing people to a kids' play place in south-end Barrie — are gone and the local owner says she isn’t happy.
Susan McNerney, who owns Smart Moves Play Place on Bryne Drive, believes it's an unfair punishment for not making money during the ongoing health crisis related to COVID-19.
Smart Moves, like most indoor play places, has been shut down for the majority of the last year.
With COVID protocols not allowing gatherings indoors for much of the time between now and last March, McNerney says she's been accumulating debt and trying to find ways to pay the bills while not being able to make any money.
“It has been very trying for our business, like so many others,” McNerney told BarrieToday. “We shut down last March like everyone else who was forced to do so and didn’t open up again until September at seven per cent of our normal capacity.”
While McNerney says she understands the provincial government needed businesses to close to curb the spread of the virus, she says it's the unnecessary costs from an Ontario ministry program that she doesn't understand.
The Canadian Tourism Oriented Directional Signs (TODS) program began in 1997 under the guidance of the Ministry of Tourism and the Ministry of Transportation. The program was created to give the travelling public a clear, consistent, directional sign program guiding tourists safely to the destinations and attractions that Ontario has to offer.
McNerney says she paid $1,695 a year to have Smart Moves on four signs located on and around Highway 400 and Mapleview Drive exits in both directions, and at the on-ramps. While the southbound Mapleview Drive on ramp sign is still there, the others are gone.
“We relied on those for business, but obviously when the lockdowns started, we weren’t able to pay as we were having to shut down,” McNerney said. “I was shocked when they had me in arrears and took the sign down a few weeks ago.”
McNerney said she was in contact with her agent at TODS often about what she owed, but said she kept asking how she was supposed to pay it when they weren’t allowed to open.
The agent "kept telling me how she understood, but that it needed to be paid and if I couldn’t, someone else who also needed it, would,” McNerney said. “We’ve been open since 2013 and had the sign not long after that.”
Randy Nichols, general manager for Canadian TODS, told BarrieToday in an email that annual contracts renew every January.
“If a client decides not to renew their annual contract or inform Canadian TODS it intends not renew within a reasonable amount of time, and does not respond to numerous attempts at contact, Canadian TODS has no option but to cancel those contracts and remove signage,” said Nichols.
When asked about the provincially ordered lockdown being the cause of the businesses inability to pay, Nichols said he understood. He said TODS has tried to work with all of its customers who have communicated with them and work toward negotiated solutions.
“The thousands of customers that we deal with rely on these signs as a vital part of their marketing strategies and continue with the program have either paid for their signage or made payment arrangements with us to continue,” Nichols said. “We understand that there are some clients that may need to cancel their signage at this time and return to the program when it is financially possible.”
On the TODS website, it says the business is a subsidiary of Interstate Logos, the largest provider of contract logo signing and tourist-oriented directional signing programs in North America.
When asked about TODS being run by an American company, Nichols explained it is a registered Canadian business since 1996 and employs 18 full-time staff out of its Woodbridge office, with seven Ontario subcontractors installing signs on Ontario roadways and its manufacturer in northeastern Ontario.
McNerney says she's still frustrated that she's expected to pay for her arrears and the sign was taken down when her closures are not her doing.
“It makes no sense that we are being charged by the Ontario government for a sign to direct people to an attraction that the government has closed,” she said. “Further, it is an insult to injury that an Ontario government program, supported by my tax dollars, is being managed so callously by a large American corporation."
