Huntington Will Look at Aerosol-Art Program : Graffiti: The plan calls for allowing ‘quality’ murals to be painted on the seaside retaining wall and, at the same time, discouraging crude scribblings.

The City Council will discuss a program Monday that would permit so-called aerosol art as well as traditional murals to be painted on the city’s seaside retaining wall while providing for the removal of unwanted graffiti.

The wall, which stretches more than half a mile north of the city’s pier, until recently sported about 30 traditional murals. During the past year, in part because the city has no formal policy governing its use, the wall has been painted over with aerosol art pieces considered by many art authorities to be artistically valid.

But crude graffiti, considered by most residents, city officials and aerosol-art advocates to be unsightly, has also appeared. Such graffiti has spilled over onto nearby stairways, portable toilets and other surfaces.

The new program, proposed by the city’s Community Services Department, will be discussed in a 5:30 p.m. council study session at City Hall, Room B-8. A council vote on future use of the wall will be taken later.

The program “would do much more than just clean up the graffiti problem,” according to an outline of the plan authored by Naida Osline, the city’s cultural services supervisor. “By building upon the positive aspects of something that is already happening, the wall could be developed into one of the most unique and dynamic ‘outdoor galleries’ in Southern California.”

The program would issue permits to wall painters, allowing them to work during daylight hours only. It would also require that images “be in general good taste and non-commercial” and aim to deter unwanted graffiti through peer pressure and by creating a sense of community pride, Osline wrote. The city’s Public Works Department, with help from Community Services, would determine which graffiti need to be removed and carry out the task.

Aerosol artists “fashion intricate artworks with a spray can,” and subject matter “ranges from abstractions of the artists chosen, self-fashioned names, to large-scale graphic images, cartoon characters, stylized portraits” and other designs painted in an array of colors, Osline wrote.

“There is a huge difference between aerosol art and unwanted graffiti,” she said Friday.

City administrators devised the proposal after meeting with local aerosol artists and residents, some of whom have complained to police and the city and want the city to remove and forbid any painting on the wall. Joining the discussion were Huntington Beach police, who also favor the elimination of any painting. Police contend that allowing aerosol art promotes unwanted graffiti, some of which they say is gang-related.

Huntington Beach Police Chief Ronald E. Lowenberg said Friday that judges would have difficulty differentiating between artistic and unwanted graffiti and may dismiss cases of illegal graffiti writing if the city legalizes aerosol art.

“I’d suggest that the beach wall area is not an appropriate location for that kind of activity . . . and that we not allow any painting on the wall,” Lowenberg said.

But Huntington Beach administrators contend that public art programs nationwide have helped reduce graffiti.

The state-run program that spawned the murals along the Huntington Beach retaining wall before the city took over operation of the wall in 1986 curbed graffiti and created community pride, city administrators say.

In addition, under a program in Philadelphia in which murals are painted on walls targeted by graffiti writers, fewer than 1% of the murals subsequently have been defaced with graffiti, according to one published account.

Signs posted along the Huntington Beach wall would explain the new program, describe the permit system and note that any unauthorized use of the wall “will be considered defacement and is not acceptable,” according to the proposal. Funding for administration of the plan, cleanup of unwanted graffiti and other costs are expected to be minimal and are already provided for in the city’s graffiti removal and public-art programs, the proposal states.

Ron Hagan, director of the Community Services Department, said in a memo to the council prepared for Monday’s meeting that if the council rejects the program, he would recommend whitewashing the wall and allowing no further painting at all.

“If having a legal area attracts a lot of illegal activity, we won’t have a legal area,” he said Friday, “so the whole key to the program is peer pressure and control” of unwanted graffiti.