Toronto's bid to become a Music City got a small boost this week when the Music Sector Office and Municipal Licensing and Standards revealed that live music venues will no longer be fined for show posters put up around the city. In the past, venues could be fined between $300 and $500 if posters promoting shows were discovered in non-designated areas.

The ridiculous thing about the former bylaw was that venues could be held accountable even if they had nothing to do with the installation of the posters. They merely had to benefit from the posters to be fined. Music Canada notes that many of these fines were successfully challenged by venue owners, but that's just all the more reason that the system required a fix.

So kudos to the city more making this long overdue change. If only that was the sole bit of Music City news kicking around this week. Unfortunately, we also learned that Paper Bag Records was forced to cancel its upcoming block party due to what organizers characterize as red tape and permit troubles with the city.

This was a well organized, relatively high profile event affiliated with NXNE, the type of programming that the mayor has claimed that the city wants to foster. As such, it remains difficult to evaluate Toronto's Music City efforts in any holistic capacity, as it seems that for every step forward, the city also takes a step back.

Photo by sevres babylone in the blogTO Flickr pool.