NIAGARA FALLS, ONT.—We can diss you too, Niagara.

Any place where a girl can come back from a bachelorette weekend having signed someone’s butt and enjoyed the cliché awesomeness of a heart-shaped Jacuzzi shouldn’t be taking jabs.

But jabs are exactly what were thrown down in a new campaign called “Shake Off the City” produced for the Niagara Parks Commission.

And it has defensive Torontonians pretty peeved.

The four television spots and eight web videos show an urban centre littered with graffiti and gridlocked by traffic. They air on CP24 and CTV.

In one spot, an exasperated couple sitting in what appears to be a traffic jam, longs for a weekend away from the grind to, evidently, bike with perfect hair through wine country.

“Niagara, break free,” says the tag line at the end.

Although they don’t name the concrete jail as Toronto straight up, the logo shows a silhouette of the city with the CN Tower and Rogers Centre in the backdrop. It morphs into trees: “Shake Off the City.”

“Toronto has many iconic symbols like the CN Tower while Niagara’s is Robert Wadlow’s gigantic chair,” said currency trader Jamie Heighway.

Burn.

“I don’t even need to diss Niagara,” said Chris Slawson, 28. “Have you even been there?!” The Toronto-bred King West dweller couldn’t leave it there though.

“What’s tackier? Artistic graffiti and street murals or Boston Pizza across from Louis Tussaud’s wax museum mixed with Planet Hollywood and a haunted house?”

Ohhhhh. Snap.

According to Joel Noden, executive director of the Niagara Parks Commission, this kind of stereotyping is exactly what Niagara is trying to get away from. And it was never the intention to hurt Toronto’s feelings.

“We were trying to break the stereotype that people in Toronto have about Niagara Falls. That it’s basically just Clifton Hill and a casino,” he said.

Er . . . By stereotyping Toronto Mr. Noden?

He pauses, then adds that the campaign came as a result of about 10 to 12 focus groups, pulling off the experiences of people who actually live in Toronto.

“It was never meant to offend or hurt anyone” Noden said. “It’s supposed to be light-hearted. There’s a whole arid side to Niagara that they’ve never experienced before.”

As a result, the 24-hour Burger King on Niagara Falls’ Clifton Hill — bedecked with a giant Frankenstein, also eating a burger — is replaced by fine dining with the Niagara River Gorge as the backdrop.

And nowhere in the campaign is a mention of the latest arrival at Tussaud’s wax museum: Twilight’s Bella and Edward, the wax edition.

It’s the Niagara we know versus the Niagara they want us to know. Bachelorette parties versus a bucolic weekend away.

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But at least someone is above all the verbal mud-slinging.

Pat Simon of Simon’s Restaurant, a Niagara institution. Located just three minutes from the Falls on Bridge St., the diner has been kicking for more than 50 years.

“I don’t think we should be criticizing other people. We’ve got a lot of improvements here that we could do ourselves,” said the 79-year-old, adding that he would never poke fun at someone else to make himself look better.

Simon is a lovely person, quick to offer a cup of coffee or glass of milk.

For the record, just around the corner from Simon’s is a wall of graffiti. Not much different than the graffiti shown in one of the “Shake Off the City” ads. Noden said the Toronto graffiti was filmed outside a production studio on Queen St. W.

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” said Noden, referring to the graffiti, adding. “Personally, I like the Queen Street area.”

He also said that he doesn’t mind too much when people poke fun at Niagara.

“I laugh and I say, ‘You haven’t seen the whole thing’. . . It doesn’t offend me one bit quite frankly.”

Torontonians take their dissing more seriously.

On the campaign’s Facebook page Tuesday a post from François Dionne read: “I am not impressed with your ads obviously disparaging Toronto. Believe it or not, we like our city. You won’t attract us to your part of the province with this misguided negativity.”

Ouch.

Still, a man like Pat Simon ought to have the last word.

“We are getting too sensitive. You can’t make a joke any more or poke fun at anything. People do get upset too quickly.”

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