Explosion of Graffiti Called Work of ‘Hip Hop’ Taggers : Vandalism: Cities are hit by new spurt of defacing called part of a nationwide fad, not the territorial marks of gangs.

An explosive increase in graffiti has hit several Orange County cities, but authorities say the new taggers aren’t gang members but teen-agers involved in a nationwide fad.

“There seems to be a contest among taggers on how much graffiti they can spread,” said Louis Sandoval, public works director in Huntington Beach, which has experienced the increase along with Anaheim, Santa Ana, Garden Grove and others.

A UC Irvine graffiti expert, Devon Brewer, said the new taggers are “hip hop writers.”

“Gang graffiti is more regimented,” said Brewer. “In hip hop writing, the emphasis is on originality, individuality and style. Hip hop focuses on a writer’s name rather than a gang.”

Brewer said that “hip hop,” a name given to a form of break dancing and rap music in New York City, encompasses a youth subculture that now includes clothing styles and writing, or graffiti. Hip hop has spread from New York and Philadelphia across the nation, Brewer said.

“Orange County is really a late bloomer with hip hop,” Brewer said. “The hip hop writers come from all ethnic groups and income levels, and they usually reflect the makeup of a community. So I would expect that Orange County has a large percentage of white hip hop writers.”

Brewer, like various city officials, said he doesn’t believe the increase in graffiti in Orange County is gang-related.

“Gangs use tagging to stake out turf,” Brewer said. “These (new) taggers are people who are just learning the form, and so they make tags. If they knew more about the form, they’d be attempting larger things such as murals.”

Brewer, who is working on his doctorate in social science at UCI, has made national studies of graffiti. He said hip hop tagging draws diverse reactions. “Some say it is art, and some say it is vandalism,” Brewer said.

City officials generally brand the hip hop tagging as vandalism--not a form of art.

Buildings never defaced before have been spray-painted, city officials said, and the cleanup bills are mounting. In Huntington Beach, which estimates the cost of removing a single graffito at $14, the city has had to remove 1,014 new graffiti in the last three weeks alone.

Sandoval said the new spurt in graffiti is expected to increase the city’s removal cost to about $80,000 this fiscal year--an 8% increase over last fiscal year.

Santa Ana’s problem with graffiti is much more expensive. At the Santa Ana City Council meeting on Monday, City Manager David N. Ream said the city spends $850,000 yearly on graffiti. He said the recent wave of non-gang graffiti may hike the cost to $1 million a year--an 18% increase.

Civic leaders in the affected cities have taken a dim view of the tagging.

Katherine Hatch Smith of Anaheim last year launched an organization named GRASP (Group Resolving Anti-Social Problems), because of her concern about gangs and graffiti.

“My overall thought is that this shows a lack of respect for public and private property,” Smith said. “There’s a whole generation of children who don’t feel loved. They don’t respect themselves, and so they can’t respect others’ property.”

Smith said schools can help the situation. She specifically pointed to the La Habra Elementary School District, which this school year began requiring students to wear uniforms, a major goal of GRASP’s anti-gang program. Smith said she recently visited a La Habra school and was impressed; among other things, Smith said, “there was no graffiti.”

Huntington Beach Police Detective Michael J. Mello, a gangs expert who is a board member of GRASP, said he is not persuaded that “artists” are expressing themselves in the hip hop tagging.

“If they want to do art work, why don’t they buy an inexpensive easel?” Mello said. “What we’re really talking about is people spraying their names in paint. That’s art? Even I can do that.”