Painted Into a Corner : Murals on Lawndale Shop Upset Neighbors, City Officials

When Carlos Marin hired two former graffiti taggers to paint eye-catching murals on his Lawndale auto repair shop, he hardly expected a community uproar.

But the spray paint had barely dried when some neighboring businesses started to complain that the murals marked the restyling of their quiet, old-fashioned suburb into the image of East Los Angeles.

“I was surprised,” said Marin, owner of Fine Car Exteriors. “I thought everybody would like it.”

Prompted by the complaints, city officials have now told Marin he may have to paint over the $600 murals that he hoped would discourage graffiti and, at the same time, help out some youths who were looking for work.

The officials say the flashy paint job appears to be larger than allowed under city guidelines. They also say Marin violated a city ordinance that requires business owners to seek permits for any signs. But Marin says the brightly painted murals, which incorporate his business’s name and phone number, are art, not advertising, and not regulated by the city.

The controversy has become another example of the culture clash between the city’s once-predominant Anglo residents and its quickly growing Latino population.

“It’s something about Lawndale,” said 17-year-old Eddy Millan, one of the artists whose work sparked the debate. “They haven’t gotten adjusted to other people being there, minorities. So when they see a spray can and a minority using it, they say ‘Oh no, it must be vandalism.’ ”

Millan and his partner, Alberto Polanco, 18, had shown nearly 200 businesses portfolios of their work before they landed their first job at Fine Car Exteriors. The youths assured Marin that the murals were practically “graffiti-proof” because gang members and taggers would respect their artwork. And as part of the deal, they agreed to come back as often as necessary to maintain their work.

Halfway through the job, Tatco Inc. across the street, another business plagued by graffiti, also commissioned a mural. By the time they had finished both jobs, Millan and Polanco had received nearly a dozen inquiries from other potential clients.

Bob Crandall, owner of nearby Crandall Radiator Service, said he didn’t mind the mural in its early stages when the artists had just drawn a couple of cars on the building. But by the time they had finished the paintings, his sentiments had soured.

“Honestly, I don’t care for it,” Crandall said. “I think it cheapens the neighborhood. . . . it looks like a step backward to me.”

Drivers gawk at the murals so much that he is worried there will be an accident, he said. And recently, he almost lost a customer who said she was afraid to leave her car because she feared the area was rife with gangs.

Said another neighbor who asked not to be named: “I’m not prejudiced or anything. It just makes me feel like I’m in East L.A.”

The city has no ordinances prohibiting murals. But city officials consider the paintings of Millan and Polanco to be advertisements and therefore regulated under the city’s sign ordinance.

“The issue here is whether or not what the guys put up is a sign,” said Gary Chicots, Lawndale’s director of community development. “Whatever you want to call it, what they did out there is an advertisement. That’s the way we define it.”

Under the Lawndale Municipal Code, all signs must be approved by the community development department. Permits cost $21 plus $33 for each square foot of the sign. Violators of the ordinance can be fined up to $250. If city officials determine that Marin’s murals violate size limitations, they may ask him to remove part or all of the paintings, Chicots said. City guidelines allow businesses to have two square feet of sign for every frontage foot.

Originating in New York, graffiti-inspired murals have popped up throughout Los Angeles County in recent years. Although murals are recognized as a legitimate art form by the artistic community, young muralists have had trouble gaining wider acceptance for their art.

Many people cannot tell the difference between commissioned murals and illegally scrawled graffiti, said Judith Baca, artistic director and founder of Social and Public Arts Resource Center, a nonprofit organization largely funded by the city of Los Angeles to produce public art projects.

Because spray can art had its origins among minority youths from low-income neighborhoods, many people tend to have negative feelings about the art form, she said.

But Councilman Larry Rudolph, who counts himself among the murals’ critics, objected. “Racism has nothing to do with it,” he said. “I just don’t like the look of it. It’s not my idea of how our community should look.”