Draconian infringes on personal liberties to keep the sponsors happy:
The law, enacted in July as The Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games By-law, will be in effect from Jan. 1 to March 31. Under the law, Vancouver residents also can’t post unauthorized signs advertising products that compete with sponsors such as Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Co. or Toronto-based Royal Bank of Canada, the country’s biggest bank. Existing signs and store banners already approved by the city would be exempt.
“It’s a really slippery slope,†Shaw said.
People and companies are also prohibited from displaying unapproved signs and handing out any advertising matter, “capable of use or used to convey information or direct or attract attention for a commercial purpose.â€
That might include T-shirts promoting companies such as Burger King, a competitor to Olympics partner McDonald’s Corp. of Oak Brook, Illinois, or Bank of Montreal, a competitor of Royal Bank, Eby said.
“A T-shirt might be considered a sign,†Eby said. Signs that mock or disparage Olympic sponsors would also violate the bylaw, he said.
Amsterdam’s city authorities already have nanny statist tendencies, a habit of deciding a rainbow flag is against “the character of a building” but twenty square metre big IPhone or Sony adverts are all right. With the Olympics this would only go into overdrive.