Vancouver city hall clock back on time after someone noticed it was out of sync

The four-sided neon clock at the top of the building has been fixed after a Reddit user pointed out that the south side was 10 minutes fast

Published Jan 07, 2025  •  3 minute read

The West and South facing clocks at Vancouver City Hall in Vancouver, B.C. on January 7, 2025. Photo by NICK PROCAYLO /10106852A

People often complain that one hand of Vancouver city hall is out of sync with the other.

In terms of the neon clock at the top of the art deco building, it’s sometimes literal.

There are four clock faces atop the 1935 structure, facing north, south, east and west.

A Reddit user named BasicallyOK recently posted a nighttime photo showing the south face at 9:45 p.m. at the same time the west face was showing it was 9:35 p.m.

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“Friendly request,” wrote BasicallyOK. “Can we at least set the clocks on city hall correctly?”

When a Postmedia reporter went to take a look at 10:55 a.m. Tuesday, the clock face facing south was about 10 minutes faster than the other three.

Vancouver’s city hall clock was out of sync Jan. 7, when it read 10:55 a.m. on the west side (on the left) and 11:05 a.m. on the south.

But wait! When a Postmedia photographer arrived to take a pic at 1:25 p.m., the south clock face was more or less the same time as the other three.

What happened? The discrepancy was pointed out to the city, and it fixed it.

“The city has now synced the south clock to display the correct time,” said an email from the city.

“The city handles the synchronization of City Hall clocks internally. However, for repairs that go beyond routine synchronization, the city primarily relies on Landmark Clocks.”

Landmark Clocks is the company founded by Ray Saunders, the builder of the Gastown steam clock. He died on Nov. 23, but his assistant, Dylan Myles-Scott, has decided to continue the business.

Myles-Scott and Saunders recently fixed the east clock face at Vancouver’s city hall.

“Basically, the minute hand was disengaging from the hour hand, there was a gear that was out of place,” explained Myles-Scott.

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“The plate that held it in place was loose. It basically just slipped the gear off, and the hour hand was getting no power. So the hour hand was sitting down at six o’clock.”

The city didn’t say what went wrong with the clock on the south face. But Myles-Scott said all four clock faces run off a master control box.

“You can control each side independently through the fast forward or stop the clock independently,” he said.

One of the replies to the original Reddit post was by someone who goes by Dazzling-Rub-8850.

“I worked with the old clock in waterfront station,” Dazzling-Rub posted. “The only way to set the time there was to shut the power on the circuit breaker and then wait until the time is correct again and turn on the power. I’m guessing there may be mechanical maintenance issues too with the city hall tower clocks.

“So it may not be worth the hassle to try to adjust the time because it will get out of sync again.”

A longer view of Vancouver’s city hall clock when it was out of sync Jan. 7.

Myles-Scott said you can indeed change the time on big public clocks by unplugging them and then plugging them back in at the correct time.

He said big clocks like the city hall clock don’t go backward, they only run forward.

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But he said big clocks typically have a feature that allows them to go forward at 10 times the normal speed, which takes six minutes for each hour of fast-forward.

Clocks are changed twice per year, advancing an hour forward for daylight time in the spring and then by 11 hours forward in the fall to get back to standard time.

If you don’t want to wait 11 hours, you can adjust to standard time by turning on the speed feature and running that clock forward for 66 minutes.

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