Graffiti-Removal Methods Vie for Attention at L.A. Fair

“It will clean street signs. It will clean the electrical boxes. . . . One quart? Jeepers, that will clean 50 or 60 square feet, no problem whatsoever.”

And is it safe? “Here’s the ultimate test,” said sales rep Chris Barnett, dabbing a chemical-coated finger in his mouth. “See? You can actually lick it. It can’t hurt you.”

Barnett, exhibiting the eager intensity of a Veg-O-Matic salesman, was demonstrating the advantages of the “revolutionary new” So-Safe Graffiti Remover liquid. The place? The lawn of City Hall, where under multicolored canvas canopies Thursday, representantives of half a dozen firms that employ wax, water, sand or secret chemical formulas to make spray paint disappear participated in a first-of-a-kind graffiti removal fair.

Sponsored by Mayor’s Office

Sponsored by the mayor’s office, the five-hour program was designed to alert government agencies and passers-by to the options available to clean up their neighborhoods.

In addition to the private sector, several city and community-based agencies that provide advice or assistance to aggravated homeowners and neighborhood groups were also represented.

There was Operation Clean Sweep, a Board of Public Works program that helps organize and provide tools, trash bags and other supplies for community cleanups. There was the Mayor’s Committee for Graffiti Removal and Prevention, which offers free paint through a hot line number--(213) CLEAN-UP--to residents who prefer the cover-up method of cleaning up.

There was Project HEAVY, a program through which youngsters convicted of crimes clean off graffiti as part of their community service sentences. And there was Community Youth Gang Services, which hires out-of-work youths to erase the seemingly omnipresent gang graffiti off city walls and sidewalks.

Mayor Tom Bradley, who showed up briefly to watch a hydro-blasting demonstration, said in a short talk that graffiti is “a plague . . . that hardly any neighborhood in this city has escaped.”

“The key to solving the graffiti problem,” Bradley added, “is having the community alert and aware and helping in the cleanup effort.”

Graffiti’s Cost

Stuart Haines, chairman of the mayor’s anti-graffiti committee, estimated Thursday that several million dollars a year are spent by local government agencies to eliminate graffiti. The city Board of Public Works alone budgets $200,000 a year, and RTD officials said a significant portion of the $8 million per year they spend to combat vandalism can be attributed to graffiti removal.

The exhibition, which was not publicized heavily, drew little public participation. However, several lunchtime strollers who happened by departed with samples of such products as Graffiti Juce.

“It’s totally nontoxic. It just kind of feels sticky, that’s all,” declared Nathan Schneider, sales rep for the pink lemonade-colored chemical.

And what’s it made out of? “It’s like Coca-Cola. The manufacturer won’t tell you what’s in it,” Schneider shrugged. “(But) they send this stuff to the Vatican. They send it to the Louvre.”

About 30 yards away in his booth, Barnett, whose So-Safe is used by several city agencies, sneered at Schneider’s product. “They’re no competition,” he said. “They are not demonstrating on concrete and bricks like us. We are doing the tough stuff over here.”

‘An Insurance Service’

At the Graffiti Prevention Systems booth, four sales reps were garbed in white windbreakers with the firm’s name emblazoned on the backs. For anywhere from $10 to $400 a month, said salesman Gregg Silvers, Graffiti Prevention will provide continual removal service to affected businesses and homeowners.

“We’re an insurance service,” he said. “We reduce the problem to a phone call.”

Among the more attentive fair-goers was Morton Rosen of the city’s structural engineering division. “In the last 10 years,” Rosen said, “graffiti has increased tremendously on the city’s bridges and underpasses. It used to be dirty words. Now it’s solid graffiti wall to wall.

“There are so many different products on the market, no one knows which is the best.”