One-Man Graffiti Buster : After-Hours Volunteer, 64, Cleans Up Santa Clarita and Tracks Taggers

Five mornings a week, beginning at midnight, Tom Haner patrols the streets of Canyon Country.

He drives through the community, on the lookout for taggers and anything that looks like gang activity. He meticulously documents any newly painted graffiti and jots down descriptions of strangers.

He’s not a cop. He’s not a security guard. Haner is 64, and retired.

“I tell ya, I like to do this,” Haner said, bouncing up and down in his seat as he pulled his Jeep off the road and into a field where he had spotted vandals on previous nights. “It’s a way of life.

“I’d much rather do this than sit at home and watch TV.”

Haner, whom one city official called the “grandfather of graffiti abatement,” has been doing this for six years, as a volunteer. Armed with police scanner, ham radio, high-powered flashlight, point-and-shoot camera and big tubs of graffiti-removal agents, he slowly drives through sleeping neighborhoods, dark alleyways, riverbeds and abandoned lots, looking for “punks.”

Formerly a heavy equipment manager for the county, Haner took early retirement in 1982, not long after his son died in a motorcycle accident. He did not, in his retirement years, set out to be the “grandfather of graffiti abatement.”

“I was at Soledad Canyon Road six years ago and saw these guys along the side of the road, and they were having trouble carrying sacks of sand,” Haner said. “The men turned out to be members of the Sheriff’s Department. They told me they were removing graffiti, and I said, ‘What’s graffiti?’ And they said, ‘It’s that spray-painted stuff up there.’ And I helped them sandblast the stuff off.”

Haner had found his calling. He began his nocturnal searches.

“If in this city, I’m afraid to walk down the street, afraid that some punk is going to get me, I don’t want to live here,” Haner said.

As soon as Haner spots new graffiti, he pulls over, takes a picture of the tag and immediately sprays the area with chemicals. If the graffiti is erased before it can be seen by the taggers’ friends, he said, it ruins their fun.

Haner pulled into an alley and drove up to the back door of an adult novelty store where he had previously spotted a tag. “This is the only graffiti in town,” he said proudly. Haner quickly removed it using a steel-wool pad and an assortment of chemicals.

He drove off, pointing out like a tour guide the scores of doors, walls, telephone cable boxes, fences and electrical poles caked with layers of paint he had applied over the years to cover graffiti.

The nocturnal prowls are only part of Haner’s civic activities. He’s block captain for his Neighborhood Watch group, and is on both the Santa Clarita Pride Committee and anti-gang task force. He volunteers for the Sheriff’s Department and is a member of the Canyon Climbers 4-Wheel Drive Club, a search-and-rescue team.

“I think he’s one of the hardest-working civilians in this valley,” said Deputy Tony Miano, a member of the Santa Clarita sheriff’s station’s team that handles gang-related crimes.

“Most of what Tom does is not bringing us information on crimes,” Miano said. “He’s out there tracking graffiti, giving us good documentation. The most important thing is that he’s on top of it as soon as he sees it, in any given place. That’s probably Tom’s biggest asset. He’s tireless.”

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On five occasions, Haner has received $500 rewards from the city for gathering information that leads to convictions of taggers. He always gives part of the reward money to someone who might have helped him spot a crime or to one of his favorite causes, such as the Pride Committee.

Some deputies have affectionately nicknamed him “the Bounty Hunter,” but Haner doesn’t like the moniker.

“We all know him,” Miano said. “He drops by the sheriff’s station to fill out the graffiti abatement forms and we see him doing his patrols.”

The deputies are not the only ones who know Haner. On several occasions, taggers and other vandals have spotted him on his rounds and made threats, Haner said.

About two years ago, he came upon graffiti on a cable box that read, “The old man 187”--187 is the state penal code for homicide.

Haner said that the teen-ager responsible for the graffiti, whom he described as a skinhead, is now in a juvenile probation camp.

“Everyone who has threatened to kill me has gone to jail,” Haner said.