These taggers have got to be stopped. Some of them are serial taggers,
they literally go up and down different parts of the city taggin not
dozens of buildings, but hundreds of buildings. And at $500 a pop to
clean them up professionally, that is $50,000 in damages or more. In my
mind, that is felony property damage, even though it is spread out over
a couple of weeks. If it isn't it should be. Many of these tags don't
have the intent of taggers of past generations, they are not a personal
statement or a statement of rebellion. They are pure malice and simple
vandalism, especially the gang tags where they are used as a threat.
Getting a gang tag on your garage doesn't give you any warm fuzzies, it
is a threat to your property and to your personal safety, they are
telling you that this property is their territory.
Taggers should be forced to do community service, equal to the damage
they have done in addition to paying as much as they can reasonably
afford to fix the damage they did. If they can't do that, or if they
re-offend, they should spend a few days in jail. Tagging is a very
damaging livability crime, especially to businesses and houses in low
income areas, they often don't have the resources to easily deal with
the problem.
I don't know if lawsuits are the best way to deal with this, but there
are other ways. One thing we can do is tax spray paint, and use the tax
to fund a clean up program and a teenager school program in art or
painting so that they have a positive outlet for this energy. Teenagers
often don't have enough outlets for creative energy. We can also start
selling spray paint and paint markers from a locked cabinet or from
behind the counter and ban selling it to minors. We can also start
doing the same with glass etching acid that taggers use to permanently
write on windows. We can also require people to sign a waiver if they
want to buy certain paint products. We can also put serial numbers on
the paint cans to find out where it is coming from so we can talk to
business owners that are the source of the paint without burdening other
business owners with regulations and we can track down graffiti
vandals. All environmental hazards like toxic paints should be tracked
anyway. We can also increase the fine for graffiti. There are lots of
things we can do that will make it much harder for people to become
graffiti vandals without dispatching a battalion of lawyers.
Peter Vevang
Audubon
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