Coun. Chuck Puchmayr wants the city to tackle graffiti before it becomes a real problem in local business areas.
Puchmayr said he’s noticed an “outbreak of graffiti” in New West since the COVID-19 crisis began in mid-March.
“It tells me the fact that there are some isolated, quiet streets is an opportunity for some people to engage in that,” he said. “It has taken years to get to where we have virtually had a control on the graffiti issue. It is important that that is taken care of quickly. We have always found that the longer it takes to eliminate it, the bolder those that want to be taggers get.”
Kim Deighton, the city’s manager of licensing and integrated services, said bylaw officers normally do enforcement of graffiti, but they’ve been fully engulfed in COVID-related issues, such as taking complaints and working the compliance hotline.
“As a result, the graffiti has gone down in terms of priority down the priority list – COVID being health and safety, and graffiti not health and safety,” she recently told council. “The other complexity, I guess, is getting businesses to clear the graffiti, which would be an expense to them, in a time when they are probably under a lot of financial strain. We have definitely noticed the proliferation of graffiti. It’s definitely on the rise.”
On Monday, council considered a motion by Puchmayr to deploy a graffiti-remediation crew to deal with new graffiti as quickly as possible, recognizing that many local businesses are closed and unable to provide a higher degree of vigilance. He also put forward a motion suggesting the city use its public arts endowment fund to local artists to paint the plywood that’s being placed over some businesses that have closed and boarded up because of COVID-19.
“I don’t want to see this reverting back to the days where there was rampant graffiti in our city,” he told council Monday.
Puchmayr believes the presence of graffiti lowers the level of comfort and the feeling of safety of some merchants and customers. He said it’s been proven that the quicker the graffiti is remediated, the less likely it will return because taggers aren't able to show off their work and they won't invest time and paint in a location that will quickly be remediated.
Council members, however, preferred referring the issue to the education/enforcement and the business/working economy task forces for their input.
Coun. Mary Trentadue said she doesn’t see graffiti removal as a priority at this time, but would be willing to refer it to the working groups.
“It sounds like … we don’t have the resources or we would have to redeploy people from other things that are priorities to doing this kind of work. I really don’t see a need. I am not hearing from the public that it’s an issue,” she said. “Some people see graffiti as public art. I guess it just depends on your point of view.”
Mayor Jonathan Cote said the city doesn’t want to let graffit become out of control, as that could hamper the recovery after COVID-19.
“Having said that, I would want to get a better understanding of what the implications are from a city perspective, of taking over this responsibility from businesses,” he said. “We are in a unique position where we are trying to save money across all departments and then to add a new expense to the city that isn’t traditionally our expense, I’d certainly want to better understand the problem and what the issues are before making that decision.”
After hearing council’s comments, Puchmayr agreed the best route was to refer the issue to the task forces – a motion that passed unanimously.
