Santa Maria is getting more colorful—and not necessarily in a good way. If you think you’ve been seeing more graffiti than usual around town lately, you’re not imagining things. In January 2009, there were 33 logged incidences of graffiti, according to city records. Last month, there were 114.
While the majority of tagging is gang or tagging-crew related, said Alex Posada, director of Recreation and Parks for Santa Maria, the spike in graffiti over the last year comes less from the gang side and more from crews wanting to make a name for themselves.
“The mentality is, we’re a group, we’re together,” he explained. “They’re more about getting their name out, regardless of where they live. They just want to outdo everyone else.”
Posada admitted that there’s a difference in quality between tagging-crew and gang-related graffiti: “Those kids [in the crew] see their work as artwork; it’s not just consonants put up on a wall,” he said. “But I will tell you—and the police will tell you—that it’s still vandalism of public property.”
If taggers see the practice as artwork, could channeling their efforts help reduce graffiti around the city? What about a graffiti wall, where tagging is allowed?
There was talk last year about having such a wall at Atkinson Park, and some younger members of the community even addressed the City Council. Since then, however, the issue hasn’t gone anywhere.
The complications with putting up a graffiti wall are twofold, Posada said.
“We spoke with police who’ve had experience with graffiti walls in other communities, and not only did the walls not help with the issue of graffiti overall, but they sometimes actually tended to foster graffiti in areas around the walls,” he said.
The second issue is a legal one: Santa Maria has an ordinance preventing anyone younger than 18 from holding “graffiti tools.” Posada said there’s been talk about getting a program or art class of some type going where the tools would be available at that location, but that idea hasn’t progressed beyond “casual conversation.”
“It’s a little more convoluted than we expected,” Posada said of efforts to find a legal outlet for taggers.
Until a solution is found, graffiti will have to be dealt with the old-fashioned way: with a pressure washer and some paint.
Jorge Guevera sides with the paint. He’s been with the city for 28 years, the last 10 of which he’s spent working on graffiti abatement.
He’s got one guy working for him, and together they’re responsible for taking care of graffiti that’s “visible from the street to the public.”
While Guevera and his crew try to respond to reports of graffiti within 48 hours, such a rapid response isn’t always possible. Sometimes a rain day will put the work on hold; other times Guevera gets a call about a location outside their purview.
“People call about the [walls next to] the freeway,” he explained. “They’ll call up irate and say, ‘I called yesterday and nothing’s been done.’ The problem is, Caltrans does not allow us to paint those; they’re fenced, and we’re not able to get in.”
The group is willing to help as much as they can, Guevara said, but budgetary constraints mean they can only do so much. Graffiti on businesses or homes is ultimately the owners’ responsibility.
“We’re not professional painters, and we’re using recyclable, low-quality paint,” Guevera explained. “Some people have a nice fence, stained really nice. We’re not going to go in and pressure wash that. We’d tell them to take care of it.”
Guevera said that while he and his crew will be out and about, paintbrushes in hand, they ultimately need help from the community to tackle the issue of graffiti.
“Keep an eye on what’s going on in your neighborhood, inform police as soon as possible,” he said. “Maybe go to city council and voice your opinion.”
Contact Staff Writer Nicholas Walter at nwalter@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Feb 18-25, 2010.