Modest Proposal : ‘It Takes All of Us to Make L.A. Graffiti-Free’

KENNETH M. GAL

Chairman, Italia/Gal Advertising, Los Angeles

For a long time, like most people in L.A., I did nothing when I saw graffiti scarring the city.

I’d think to myself: Why can’t someone just make it all go away?”

Finally, it dawned on me that there really isn’t a “someone,” it’s us. I decided if I did something to rid my neighborhood of graffiti, I could mitigate those feelings of helplessness and frustration. So every weekend I clean up graffiti in my neighborhood. When taggers realize you’ll be covering up the graffiti almost as fast as they create it, they do it elsewhere.

What follows are some possible solutions to the graffiti problem.

* Actively encourage anyone who lives in this city to remove graffiti wherever they can easily get to it. (I recommend “smoke gray” paint for marred metal light posts and electrical boxes). Rationale: Taggers dramatically outnumber the people responsible for removing graffiti. Without more people helping, it will continue to be an epidemic.

* Levy fines on businesses that do not cover graffiti within three working days after being tagged. Monitoring could be done by the city’s parking enforcement division. Rationale: Of course, this punishes the victim, but if vandals broke a bottle on the premises and a customer got cut, who would be responsible? * Urge Caltrans officials to adopt the MTA’s “zero tolerance” approach. Make a point of calling the graffiti hotline at (800) 780-7824. Rationale: A great deal of graffiti is found around road construction sites.

* Impose a $1-per-can tax on spray paint in the state of California to fund additional cleanup. Rationale: Again this penalizes the innocent, but graffiti is an epidemic that requires severe action. * Create “sign stickers” to cover graffiti on road signs instead of the time- and dollar-consuming process of cleanup. Rationale: Printing thousands of “Stop,” “Yield” and “Do Not Enter” stick-ons to be placed over the original sign makes it easier and cheaper to return the sign to its original state.

* Reduce the number of signs on the streets, to reduce the number of graffiti “targets.” Rationale: Probably up to 10% of the signs along the road are unnecessary--for instance those informing us that this road construction was paid for by our tax dollars.

* Coat every possible sign with “Graffiti Coat,” a resistant coating. Rationale: This substance allows graffiti to be removed with a citric-based liquid. It is relatively cheap and easy to apply.

I have purposely ignored punishment of taggers because there aren’t enough law enforcement officials to deter them sufficiently. A self-policing approach seems more practical.

If personal satisfaction isn’t enough to motivate you to help clean up graffiti, consider the staggering financial implications. Graffiti kills commerce by acting as a constant reminder that the streets are not safe. And although there are no reliable statistics, one can only imagine the effect this barbaric defacement of property has on tourists.

It’s time the law-abiding citizens of Los Angeles posted a message of their own.