City OKs Plan Allowing Spray-Painting on Seawall

Muralists and so-called “aerosol artists” may soon be able to practice their work legally on the city’s seawall under an experimental program approved Monday by the City Council.

Huntington Beach is now the only city in Orange County with an art program permitting murals created with spray cans, which some art authorities consider valid artistic expression.

Proposed by the city’s Community Services Department, the program allows people to apply for artists’ permits. The work may be done only during daylight hours and must be tasteful and non-commercial. Those caught painting on the wall without permits will be cited and fined $100.

Councilman Jack Kelly, who praised the program as farsighted, said, “There’s a massive artistic voice” in the art form.

The milelong seawall, which extends north from the pier, once boasted about 30 traditional murals. But in the last year or so, it has been painted with aerosol artworks--elaborate images or words in large, colorful letters--as well as with crude graffiti, which has also appeared on nearby stairways and other surfaces.

Residents have complained to city officials about the wall’s appearance and about possible gang connections. Huntington Beach Police Detective R.K. Miller, assigned to gang investigation, has estimated that “much less than” one-fourth of the graffiti on and around the wall is gang-related.

Community services officials have said public art programs elsewhere in the county have helped reduce unwanted graffiti. They have received letters in support of the program, which they envision as a dynamic outdoor community gallery that could engender creative expression.

Under the new program, the city will clean all illegal and unwanted graffiti from the wall and surrounding property and then solicit volunteer groups to do the cleanup each month thereafter.

Last month, the City Council rejected an earlier version of the program because it included no fine for illegal graffiti.

On Monday night, Mayor Peter M. Green and council members Kelly, Earle Robitaille and Grace Winchell voted for the program. Councilmen Don MacAllister and Jim Silva voted against it. Councilwoman Linda Moulton-Patterson was absent.