HUNTINGTON BEACH : City Anti-Graffiti Laws Proposed

A package of proposals to cope with graffiti is scheduled to come before the City Council tonight.

One part of the package calls for creating a $500 reward for information leading to the conviction of a tagger.

Another proposal would require retail stores “to put all aerosol paint, etching tools, and indelible marking pens behind sales counters, under locked case, or in a location that is not openly accessible.”

The anti-graffiti recommendations came from a council subcommittee appointed several weeks ago after an upsurge of tagging in the city.

The Public Works Department reported that the city has recorded 9,376 instances of graffiti in the past nine months. By contrast, the city recorded only 2,893 graffiti instances in fiscal year 1990-91 and 5,291 instances in 1991-92.

It has cost the city $82,331 to remove graffiti in the first nine months of the current fiscal year, contrasted with $75,350 for 1991-92.

“The community is growing tired of the costly and time-consuming problem of removing graffiti from their homes and places of businesses,” said city Community Service Director Ron Hagan, in a written report to the council.

The package of recommendations does not mention the city’s disputed seawall art program. That program, started last year, allows residents and non-residents alike to get free permits to paint on the beach seawalls north of the pier. Spray-can painting and other forms of “graffiti art” are allowed on the walls.

Critics of the seawall program, including Police Chief Ronald E. Lowenberg, have charged that it has resulted in the spread of illegal graffiti. In rebuttal, Naida Osline, head of the city’s art program, has said there is no proof to connect illegal graffiti to the seawall program.