[URBAN NOTE] "Consultant’s $2.5-million lawsuit claims he conceived Toronto sign"

[rfmcdonald]

The Toronto Star's Steve Russell shares the news

In less than a year, the Toronto sign has become a fixture in the city, welcoming tourists, starring in Instagram feeds and lighting up with custom colours to mark both celebrations and tragedies such as the recent terrorist attacks in Belgium.

But the Nathan Phillips Square tourist attraction is now the subject of a $2.5-million lawsuit over who had the original idea.

Markham-based creative brand marketing consultant Bruce Barrow has filed a civil suit against the city of Toronto as well as Mayor John Tory, councillors Josh Colle and Michael Thompson. Barrow alleges that he had the original concept for the three-dimensional, block-lettered, LED-illuminated sign and that he shared it with them in a confidential proposal in 2014.

Barrow told the Star he can recall turning on the TV in July 2015 when the sign was installed at Nathan Phillips Square before the opening ceremonies of the Pan-Am Games, “and there was Mayor Tory standing in front of this huge sign that looked exactly like what I’d presented.”

“My jaw dropped,” he said, calling it a “pit-in-your-stomach kind of feeling."

My photo of the sign, taken this past fall, is below.