Paint This as a Threat, Not an Annoyance : Graffiti: Whole neighborhoods are being destabilized by gang markings. L.A. politicians must offer broad strokes, not simple solutions.

The scrawl of graffiti is not a benign nuisance like unswept trash in the gutter, unpleasant to look at but essentially harmless. It is much more than the innocent doodling of bored adolescents or the creative outlet of frustrated but underprivileged future artists.

Graffiti are an attack on all of us. Graffiti-filled walls claim neighborhoods as gang turf, destabilizing all kinds of neighborhoods. Residents are afraid, because they know their communities are slipping from their grasp.

The fear is not misplaced. For gangs, graffiti are a communications network, a drug-advertising medium and a means of intimidating and dominating a neighborhood. There are an estimated 60,000 gang members citywide. Their graffiti are everywhere. Much of the graffiti in the West San Fernando Valley are done by “skinheads” who deface synagogues as well as using graffiti to advertise their drug operations.

Graffiti in the parks make everyone less likely to use them. Dead parks no longer used by families are the business addresses of gangs. Graffiti on sidewalks and walls make passers-by suspicious of every small group of people, especially young men.

Citizens have turned to their public officials for help, but citizen concerns have not been translated into public policy.

The City of Los Angeles has neither an effective nor a comprehensive graffiti strategy. Council members uniformly condemn graffiti, but the council was slow even in releasing $500,000 earmarked in 1989 for supervision of work-release inmates to clean up graffiti. Most on the council sincerely hope that volunteer groups will take buckets and paint brushes and clean the city, and that the problem will just go away.

Volunteer efforts in the city have indeed been numerous, but volunteers can’t succeed against the graffiti problem across this city. For one thing, volunteers can’t safely work in some neighborhoods; for another, they do not have the resources or time for a sustained citywide effort. And finally, government has no right to burden the victims of graffiti with the responsibility for finding a cure; we rightly expect leadership on this citywide problem.

One group seeking to make the city take responsibility for the anti-graffiti struggle is Valley Organized in Community Efforts (VOICE), an organization of synagogues and Protestant and Catholic churches whose 35,000 families live in the San Fernando Valley. Graffiti is a growing presence in every neighborhood in the Valley, as elsewhere. VOICE has demanded more than the “business as usual” approach on the part of the City of Los Angeles.

VOICE has coordinated with Community Youth Gang Services, negotiated with members of the City Council and state Assembly and researched anti-graffiti efforts in other cities. The result is a strategy that, if implemented, would significantly reduce the blight. But the city and state should provide leadership to accomplish these steps:

--Municipal judges should be encouraged to sentence persons convicted of any misdemeanor, not just graffiti-related crimes, to remove graffiti as an alternative sentence. Commercially hired removal costs about $35 per 100 square feet, far more than the city can afford.

--The city should budget $3 million in 1990 to pay capable supervisors for the graffiti removers and provide equipment and supplies. This figure is only about half of a what a city report estimates would be needed to sustain a citywide removal effort, but it is far more than what is now provided for a less coordinated effort, and the proposal has the support of Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky.

--Both the City and County of Los Angeles should require that spray-paint cans be kept under lock and key at stores. Councilman Nate Holden has already proposed such legislation. While laws exist forbidding the sale of spray paint to youths, much of the paint used for graffiti is stolen. New York City, which just completed a major graffiti-removal project on its subways, has had a lockup law since 1985.

--The Legislature should place an excise tax of 10 cents on spray-paint cans and 5 cents on wide-tip felt pens, a proposal that Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) has agreed to support. These funds would be earmarked for graffiti removal and “Youth at Risk” programs.

In addition, each City Council office should have a coordinator for graffiti removal in that district. And city and county property managers, the U.S. Post Office, all public utility companies and other public and quasi-public entities need to develop written policies on graffiti removal on their property.

This is the time for real leadership from the mayor and City Council, and from our county supervisors and state legislators. The best-organized volunteer efforts are not enough to return neighborhoods to the people who are trying to lead decent lives. Political pressure will alert public officials to the seriousness of our demands. We want our neighborhoods back and we want our elected officials to be there for us.