By Jennifer Young
Business owners are tired of the cost and effort required to remove graffiti from their buildings, causing it to accumulate in Centretown.
Graffiti has always been a problem, but lately private businesses are having a tough time keeping up with the vandalism. As soon as they paint over it or wash it off, they find more.
“We have to paint it 10 to 12 times a year,” says Mohammed Al-Zaidi, manager of Nature’s Care Health Products on Bank Street.
Al-Zaidi says he doesn’t even know what the spray-painted graffiti means on his doorway, only that it costs a lot to have it removed. Most of the graffiti on the door frame consists of tags from various vandals.
“Sometimes I think ‘why paint it?’ I should just leave it like that,” says Al-Zaidi.
This type of frustration is causing many owners to give up on removing the graffiti.
Paul McCann, spokesperson for the city’s Graffiti Management Program, says it’s this frustration that contributes to the accumulation of graffiti in Centretown and it seems like the problem is getting worse.
McCann says graffiti isn’t on the rise, it’s a continuous problem.
“If people aren’t removing it, it’s accumulating,” he says, adding that the only way to fight graffiti is to get rid of it.
“The message vandals get is it’s okay,” he says, referring to graffiti and tags that aren’t erased.
“Tags are the random markings of a graffiti vandal,” says Rob Stanton, owner of the Graffiti Response Team. “Graffiti vandals put their personal mark on a building.”
A tag is seen as “a trophy if it can stay up and stay up long,” says Stanton. “It’s important not to glamorize it. By doings so you attract attention to it,” he says.
Stanton suggests that in order to stop tagging, business owners should apply a special coating to their buildings that will reduce sticking and make it easier to remove the graffiti.
This anti-graffiti coating can be purchased at Stanton’s business and is then applied by Stanton’s staff.
The cost varies from project to project but, “in the long run it’s cheaper than having companies come in every month to remove the graffiti.”
He says painting over the graffiti is “giving them a new canvas” to do it. Stanton says it’s best to deal with the graffiti as it happens because “trying to deal with it after the fact becomes very expensive. The best solution is fast removal.”
Rob Spittall, owner of the Comic Book Shoppe on Bank Street, is trying to stay ahead of it.
He says his shop is a prime target because it has a “big white shiny wall.” Spittall says he’s even found graffiti on his roof.
He says the only thing that can really be done to prevent the vandalism is to increase the number of police patrolling the area.
Even then, the vandals will just pretend they’re walking by and go somewhere else, he adds.
Spittall has to paint over the graffiti about once a month. He says nothing the vandals do will stop him from painting over it.
“A tag is a sign essentially to mark their property. This is my store,” says Spittall.