Mayor Rob Ford, sometimes described as a magnet for controversy, now faces a controversy about magnets.

Ford is being investigated by the city’s municipal licensing and standards department for sticking “Rob Ford Mayor” fridge magnets on dozens of cars in the parking lot of an Etobicoke church on Tuesday evening.

Ford embarked on his blitz after he suddenly sprinted out of an Etobicoke York Community Council meeting at which he had arrived only minutes earlier. He was assisted by his director of operations and logistics, David Price, and trailed by a city hall security guard.

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A resident emailed the city on Wednesday afternoon to allege Ford had violated a bylaw that forbids “depositing handbills on vehicles and handing handbills to pedestrians.”

A bylaw officer will now follow “normal procedure” and investigate, said city spokeswoman Tammy Robbinson.

Robbinson would not say if magnets are generally considered “handbills.” And it is not entirely clear that the bylaw applies to material from an elected official in a church lot: the prohibition applies to a “bill distributor” who is pursuing a “trade, business or occupation” in “any public place.”

The magnets include Ford’s home telephone number. He has handed them to everyone from elementary school students touring city hall to the American businesspeople he met on a trade mission to Chicago.

When a reporter suggested to Ford in the parking lot that some people might find his actions strange, Ford responded only that some find the reporter strange.

His press secretary, George Christopoulos, offered a more extensive defence in a Wednesday email.

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“There is no law prohibiting the mayor from handing out magnets or providing residents with a number to contact him. . . . The mayor believes that he should be accessible to the public, as part of his mandate to provide excellent customer service,” Christopoulos said.

If Ford is found to have contravened the bylaw, he could be fined $100 to $150, or let off with a caution, which Robbinson called “a standard enforcement practice.”