THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, October 18, 1994 TAG: 9410180006
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 52 lines
Who pays to clean up graffiti? The owner of the building defaced, you say? Not so fast, says Paul Riddick, councilman in Norfolk, which is now in the process of drawing up an anti-graffiti ordinance. Buildings in poorer neighborhoods are frequent targets for graffiti, and businesses in poorer neighborhoods say they can't afford repeated costs of graffiti removal.
But not removing graffiti is an invitation to more graffiti; and the more graffiti, the more uninviting the city looks to residents and prospective investors alike.
Under the ordinance now on council's plate, parents of children guilty of graffiti would be liable for cleanup costs. Great - when the guilty are caught, are juveniles and have parents with income. That's not always the case.
Councilman Riddick has suggested that the city assess each of Norfolk's 5,000 or so businesses $10 a year for a graffiti-removal fund. He has the support of some other members of coun-cil.
But businesses that can look to the city for cleanup might not take precautions of their own against graffiti. And should businesses that can afford their own cleanup costs have to subsidize those that can't? What happens, too, if and when the fund runs out - a special assessment of businesses citywide?
How about exploring other options? Funnel any fines assessed against graffitists into a graffiti removal fund. Or designate community-service penalties assessed against graffitists for graffiti-removal, their own or anybody else's. Or assign any juveniles and young adults sentenced for a (non-violent) crime graffiti removal as their community service. Or persuade youth organizations to take on graffiti-removal as a public-service project.
Private merchants' and other business associations could assess their members a graffiti-removal fee, or provide an employee apiece to an association graffiti-removal team, or drive a hard collective bargain with a private graffiti-removal firm.
And last but not least, don't businesses have a right to expect police protection after a certain point? If graffiti is such a serious problem, the police could be detailed to make a special effort at arresting those responsible. The commonwealth attorney has other things on his plate, of course, but if graffiti were taken seriously as a crime, maybe there would be less of it.
Surely, some approach can be found other than making graffiti removal one more tax-and-entitlement, dubious government duty. by CNB