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Kirkland councillor Domenico Zito wants to cut cost of cleaning up graffiti.

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Cities get tough with graffiti artists

Baie d'Urfé, Kirkland consider act of carry spray paint illegal

Giuseppe Vallante
The Gazette
Thursday, July 31, 2008

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Kirkland councillor Domenico Zito wants to cut cost of cleaning up graffiti.

The councils of Kirkland and Baie d’Urfé will vote on motions in early August to amend their nuisance bylaws in an attempt to stop graffiti before it happens.
The changes would make it a crime to simply possess spray paint or other materials commonly used to produce graffiti.
The changes were suggested to the city councils by police Station 1, said Sgt. Fred Jennings.
“It gives the police a little more room to work,” Jennings said. “(The bylaw is) sending a message to the youth. Hopefully, that will dissuade those from carrying it with them.”
The town of Kirkland wants to go as far as making the punishment for carrying spray paint equal to using it to vandalize property, said Mayor John Meaney.
He said council is also planning to double or triple the fines.
“If your little Johnny goes home with a $450 fine rather than $100, parents might be a little more inclined to do something about it,” Meaney said.
Meaney said incidents of graffiti haven’t been on the increase in Kirkland, but the town pays about $10,000 a year to clean it up.
Graffiti is on the rise, however, in Baie d’Urfé.
A month ago, about 20 homes and other properties were vandalized, said Baie d’Urfé director general Richard White.
But Baie d’Urfé will not be immediately upping the fines for graffiti. White said a committee is reviewing the numbers and will propose changes in the next six months.
Kirkland and Baie d’Urfé are modelling their new rules on the graffiti bylaws of the city of Dorval.
Dorval Mayor Edgar Rouleau said his city followed the lead of the city of London, Ont. He recommends the island’s other municipalities follow suit.
Rouleau said graffiti was increasing every year in Dorval, up to the point where the city was spending $70,000 annually on cleanup.
Dorval’s 2008 cleanup bill will probably be close to $70,000, he said.
“We’ve stopped the increase. Let’s put it this way,” Rouleau said.
He said aside from the kids, parents, commercial and industrial owners are happy with Dorval’s law.
“When you get old enough and you work and you pay taxes ... you see people (cleaning off graffiti), it’s your taxes their using,” he said.
When asked if it’s fair for kids to be fined equally for possessing spray cans or actually vandalizing property, Kirkland’s mayor, said: “I’m not getting involved in that discussion.”
But the debate as to what is legitimate public expression and what’s vandalism is needed, said Montreal street painter Peter Gibson, who goes by the name of Roadsworth.
He was arrested and charged with 53 counts of mischief, totaling $250,000 in fines in 2004 when he was caught with a stencil and a can of spray paint by the police on a Montreal street.
The charges were later dropped. He was given a permit this summer by Montreal to spray paint art on the city’s downtown streets.
Gibson said kids expressing themselves through graffiti is a reflection of their surroundings.
He said graffiti shouldn’t be considered any different than the corporate signage that litters the city’s landscape.
“We’re allowed to put Coke signs everywhere ... and glorify brand names ... and yet when kids do it, it’s an act of vandalism,” he said.
gvaliante@thegazette.
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