Community Moves Fast to Erase Scrawls of Graffiti : Gangs: Aggressive program by Lomita activists has kept the city virtually free of the markings.

“Don’t let the sun rise on graffiti.”

Inspired by this motto--and aided by the city’s maintenance crew--the Lomita Anti-Gang & Graffiti Committee took paint and brushes in hand this year to clean the city of gang-related scrawling. Today, Lomita is virtually graffiti free.

“As soon as (graffiti taggers) put it up, we take it down,” said Cindy Beiro, the committee’s chairwoman. “That is the biggest deterrent. It is of no value to them if it’s down before it’s seen.”

Last February, the City Council, irritated by a surge of graffiti in residential neighborhoods and commercial areas, appointed seven residents to tackle the problem. The committee enlisted the help of the Sheriff’s Department and established a 24-hour-a-day hot line so residents can anonymously report tagging. Beiro says the hot line gets about eight calls a day.

Volunteers who monitor the hot line report the graffiti to the city’s maintainance crew, which responds as soon as possible to wipe out the taggers’ sometimes obscene work. Sometimes committee members personally get rid of the graffiti, as they did during a paint-out in September, but usually the work is done by the city.

By distributing flyers and through word of mouth, the committee encourages Lomita residents to come to its monthly meetings, where sheriff’s deputies keep them up to date on the graffiti problem.

Through the committee’s efforts, Lomita residents have become the “eyes and ears” of the Sheriff’s Department, watching for loitering groups of youngsters with aerosol cans. Typically, a resident who sees a tagging crew is asked to call the hot line and give the name of the crew, if it is known, and the location of the graffiti.

“The deputies were skeptical at first,” Sheriff’s Capt. Bill Mangan said. “They thought it was an overwhelming problem that no one could fix. But it’s been real quiet the last three months. They have been real instrumental in erasing the graffiti.”

Several local groups and businesses have joined the graffiti fight. The Torrance Rotary Club, the Chamber of Commerce and the Kiwanettes, a high school service group for girls that had been cleaning graffiti at Narbonne High School, support the committee. The committee hopes the Kiwanettes will be an example to students as they try to keep the school free of graffiti.

Lomita Plastics Co. and Golden State Paints have donated materials to the cleaning crews.

Before graffiti is removed, members of the committee photograph it. They also keep a map of all tagged locations, including businesses and homes, to record how often certain areas are tagged.

Through the network it has established with the Sheriff’s Department and the community, the committee has been able to identify some of youths responsible for the graffiti and report their criminal activities to their parents.

Parents rather than law enforcement agencies are alerted because state law requires that taggers be caught in the act by a law officer before they can be prosecuted. However, parents who are witnesses to their child’s involvement in tagging can turn the child over to the Sheriff’s Department.

Some committee members are so committed to graffiti removal that they have turned loved ones over to the department. Beiro, for one, turned in a relative. The child was placed in the court-sponsored South Bay Diversion program, where he was given psychiatric counseling once a week for 10 weeks.