Anarchy in a Can : True, only a fraction of the spray paint made each year ends up as graffiti. But the never- ending cleanup of the damage costs millions.

Miguel Angel Gonzales, a home boy from San Pedro, says he favors Korbel brandy, small caliber revolvers and almost any brand of spray paint, so long as it is blue.

The 18-year-old member of the West Side Wilmas, a gang whose color is blue, is better known on the streets as “dopey,” a signature adorning walls in the harbor area for the past five years.

Dopey would often go through several cans of spray paint a night, “kicking back with the home boys,” he recalled in a recent interview at the county jail. He was busted on vandalism charges when he was caught scrawling over a rival gang’s graffiti and sentenced earlier this month to 130 days.

Such stiff penalties are rare, however, in society’s losing battle against graffiti. As gang activity has soared in Southern California, graffiti has become a social scourge. At the same time, it has fueled multimillion-dollar sales in spray paint, as well as a rapidly growing industry to clean up the mess.

Spray paint sales in the United States exceed half a billion dollars, although experts disagree over how much spray paint is used for graffiti, as opposed to painting back yard grills, sprucing up children’s bicycles and other household tasks.

The spray paint industry is composed of about a dozen U.S. producers that annually turn out 300 million cans, according to the National Paint & Coatings Assn. That’s more than one can for every man, woman and child in the nation every year.

“I don’t think one one-hundredth of 1% of spray paint is used for graffiti,” said Hugh Young, the paint association’s director of state and public affairs.

But graffiti experts such has Jay Beswick, a consultant and adviser to a number of gang counseling service groups, sharply disputes that assessment. “I think a substantial amount is used (for graffiti),” he said.

For example, Beswick observed, 153 cans of spray paint were used to paint just a single graffiti mural on a sound barrier wall on the San Bernardino Freeway. “You can count them at the bottom of the wall, because they don’t haul them away when they’re finished,” he said wryly.

“Graffiti is an industry,” he added. “We are talking big bucks.”

In the Southland, 150 companies are in the business of removing graffiti. And 75 paint manufacturers around the country make anti-graffiti coatings.

The public cost of removing graffiti is staggering. Government agencies in Los Angeles County alone spend $50 million annually in graffiti removal. By comparison, the nonprofit Braille Institute spends about $12 million annually in Southern California.

Much of the money that government spends to combat graffiti is contracted out to private graffiti removal firms, utilizing such heavy equipment as sandblasters and water blasters. Technology is also helping as new coatings are created that allow graffiti to be washed off.

Peter Bilinski, owner of Allied Cleaning Systems in Northridge, said the graffiti-removal industry has grown in recent years, but competition has become fierce. “I gross $45,000 per year, but it isn’t easy,” he said.

Despite massive government spending, many experts consider the fight a losing battle. The Rapid Transit District, for example, completely cleans graffiti off its buses each day, and each day fresh graffiti is painted on virtually every RTD bus. The annual cost of removal is $8.4 million.

“It is tyranny,” said Gordana Swanson, president of the RTD board.

Anti-gang crusaders also worry that gang activity and graffiti occasionally take on an aura of social respectability.

Target, a discount store chain owned by Dayton Hudson Corp., published a nationally distributed advertisement on Jan. 15 that depicted children in front of graffiti-colored walls. The kids, wearing fashionable pastel clothes on sale at Target that week, were posed holding cans of spray paint and marking pens.

“It was a regrettable incident,” said Ann Barkelew, a Dayton Hudson spokeswoman. “We heard from a lot of people . . . who said, ‘What kind of company is this?’ ”

Spray paint manufacturers plead that they are not at fault. “To do away with graffiti would do nothing but good for the industry,” said Rick Birle, president of Carson-based Zynolyte Products, a major spray paint producer owned by Standard Brands. “If graffiti stopped nationally tomorrow, I don’t thing I would notice any change in my sales.”

Zynolyte Vice President of sales Craig Gioia and Birle are both active in community organizations opposed to gangs. In addition, they note, Zynolyte contributes paint to groups that clean up graffiti.

On a recent morning, the Zynolyte production line was humming, turning out thousands of cans of spray paint. A huge warehouse was filling up, in preparation for the heavy summer demand.

As he looked on, Birle acknowledged: “You are almost afraid to tell people you are in this business. The first thing they think is gangs, graffiti, ozone depletion. PR-wise, the industry hasn’t done a good job of stressing the positive aspects of the product.”

Nonetheless, motorists traveling through Los Angeles are struck by the proliferation of graffiti. In some cases, Graffiti has entirely covered walls hundreds of feet long. After the graffiti has been removed, it quickly reappears.

“A single can of black paint can go a long way,” Birle asserted.

Birle estimated that no more than 1% of spray paint sales go to graffiti use. Even at that estimate, about 3 million cans would be used annually to deface property, more than 8,000 cans daily.

Of course, most spray paint is purchased for legitimate purposes. Birle said the product is easy to use and avoids the mess of a dirty paint brush.

Despite such good intentions, some of the spray paint reaches juvenile vandals. Under California law, retailers are prohibited from selling spray paint to minors, but the law is not well-enforced.

“They say you have to be 18, but nobody cares,” said Gonzales, the gang member who is in jail. “When I was younger, I would just go into any store and buy it.”

Indeed, retailers say they are hard-pressed to enforce the law.

“A lot of the projects and legitimate uses for spray paint are for minors,” said Jack Edwards, president of home improvement chain Builders Emporium. “It is not practical to ask everybody buying a can of paint, ‘What are you going to do with it?’