The Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF) will allow Pub Burgundy Lion, in Montreal’s in the Sud-Ouest, to keep its sign as it is.
It comes after the establishment’s co-owner, Toby Lyle, denounced that he was told by Quebec’s language watchdog to change their sign to add more French to it, claiming the word “Burgundy” was not French.
Lyle argued that the sign and the name is rooted in the history of the neighbourhood: Little Burgundy — and that all words in the signage respected language rules. He responded to them saying he was not going to change the sign that’s been there since 2008 when they opened.
“I would be remiss if I had just accepted and changed the sign,” Lyle told CityNews on Thursday. “I feel like it’s doing a disservice to the community of Little Burgundy and doing a disservice to us as a business, so I have to push back on this.”
As of June 1, new regulations under Bill 96 through Quebec’s French-language Charter require that French be strongly predominant on all signs and commercial advertising visible to the public, with French text generally occupying at least twice the space of any other language.
On its website, the OQLF writes: “A company name that contains a specific in a language other than French and that appears on a display visible from outside a premises must be accompanied by terms in French – such as a generic, a description or a slogan – which ensure a clear predominance of French.”
The OQLF told CityNews on Wednesday that they had been helping Pub Burgundy Lion in their francization process and that a decision about the compliance of the sign was not final.
On Thursday, a spokesperson for the OQLF told CityNews that after “rigorously” analyzing the file with the teams involved, “we can already confirm that certain documents should not have been sent and that it was premature to request changes to the display, since the decision on compliance had not yet been made.”
After analysis, the statement says that the sign “is compliant” and that they have “contacted the company to inform them of this.”
“This is a regrettable situation, and we are sensitive to the reactions it has generated, both from the company and the public. We will do everything possible to ensure that similar situations do not recur,” the statement concluded.
