Example #8,043 of the Public Sector’s Struggle with Common Sense

25 Replies to “Example #8,043 of the Public Sector’s Struggle with Common Sense”

1. *
   what moron would actually believe you could get a year in jail or a $10,000 fine for grafitti?
   these people just destroy their own credibility with stuff like this.
   *

2. Most graffiti artists are middle aged white conservative men, so this law is easy to enforce. Just the threat of having one’s driver’s licence delayed is enough to make any of us toe the line.
   Fortunately, homeless people and teenage kids never indulge in graffiti.

3. So they put, on a chain link fence, the only spot which you can tag.

4. When they uncovered the ruins of Pompeii, they found it was covered in graffiti.
   If the Romans – who ruled through a form of institutionalized terror, and tortured and executed people for crimes we would consider trivial – couldn’t prevent graffiti, I can personally guarantee you that we can’t, either.

5. Just to clarify, the public servants put up the sign. The city council created the offense.

6. Tolerating Graffiti is tolerating crime. Cleaning up and preventing graffiti was part of the broken windows philosophy of policing that turned NYC around. We will see if the Ferguson Effect undoes the progress in NYC, Baltimore, Chicago and St Louis.
   Ron G. aptly points out the idiocy of the sign location.

7. Ques: Why would you lose your driver’s license over graffiti?
   And by the way! One thing that works great to take spray paint off a sign, as long as it’s not a new sign and the surface is well cured, is brake fluid. Try a small patch first, but it works 90% of the time.

8. PS: I laughed profusely when I saw that sign!! Look at the haywire they used to tie it to the fence?? Most likely union workers who were late for coffee!!

9. Pointing out that we can’t prevent graffiti is not the same as saying we should tolerate it.

10. Graffiti is damned near impossible to remove from the sides of buildings if they’re stucco or brick.
    I worked for a company,in Vancouver during the 1990’s that removed graffiti, the chemicals and the hot water power washers were no fun to work with and the result usually left a ‘ghost’ of the artwork on the wall.
    They’d repaint the wall with allegedly graffiti -proof paint,and the kids would prove them wrong about that too, covering the new paint with graffiti.
    Eliminating graffiti is like eliminating poverty, lots of people try, but the results aren’t worth the effort.

11. Just supposed they outlawed graffiti in the past. We would have no painted hands, no hieroglyphs no cave paintings etc. I’m not comparing the two but it reminds me of the guys that walked to the south pole following Amundsen trail and they were thrilled when they found his garbage. They of course carried out all their own garbage. Of course when we return to the moon an archeological survey will be made of the previous Moon landings and the garbage will no doubt be brought back and placed ina museum some where. I don’t know art but i know what i like and a lot of graffiti bests art in museums malls and street corners any day.

12. The bottom 6 ft of all the buildings in downtown Athens Greece is graffiti . A written testiment to a failed country
    The strange thing is the tagging has a universal style both sides of the atlantic

13. My solution for graffiti? Snipers. Snipers armed with accurate paintball guns, shooting paintballs loaded with an indelible dye, laced with a small amount of a vesicant, like mustard gas (which is really a liquid). Enough to cause the little baskets enough pain and suffering to send them screaming to the ER, but not enough to be truly life-threatening if left untreated.
    When they show up at the ER for treatment, they get charged with “unlawful possession of chemical weapons” namely vesicant traces, which can be proven by a simple chemical test. 90 days in the slammer, plus $300 fine. Rinse and repeat, if necessary. Basically, the process is the punishment.

14. they need to be made to clean up their messes they make quit listening to the dumb excuses

15. Buddy of mine and I were caught tagging in the late 90’s I was to fast we had a no fat rule I got away . He had to go back (at night ) and clean off his graffiti but leave all the rest. Lol.

16. Brake Fluid.
    Who would have thought?

17. Tell you what, Tim – buy the damn building, then you can paint it any way you like… Graffiti is a symptom, not an art movement.

18. I would paint the sign white.

19. Best comment so far, Steve. ~:)

20. I wonder if it angered anyone seeing what one of the penalties was for this minor misdemeanour?
    Does it anger you that that a petty infraction, unrelated to your safety record or driving ability results in the removal of a licence to drive? In reality this is the state removing your means to income or to use your property (car) on a roadway you pay for by arbitrarily restricting the natural extension of your right to free mobility – all of this on an unrelated matter not pertinent to your driving record (IE public safety).
    Does the morbid kleptocratic apotheosis of stealing an individual’s right to earn income for any petty offence against the leviathan state or for the inability to pay a fine, or a tax or court award seem unjust? Does the thought of the state using your free mobility (linked to your ability of livelihood)as an extortion tool to make you pay shakedown fees or levies seem to fire up your righteous indignation and sense of civil justice?
    If not, go back to sleep and enjoy the new fasict feudalism being constructed by a bureaucracy with no moral compunctions. Jurisdictions which remove a drivers licence on matters unrelated to driving or public safety are engaged in malfeasance and extortion – but I guess some people can live with anything – until it marches up to you doorstep and uses its jackboots to kick the door in and take you away. Then all the small seemingly insignificant signs will come home to roost – too late for us all.

21. Petty offense, my ass. Its a disease. It may be inconsequential to tag a sign, but the side of a $100/sq ft architectural wall is something else entirely. In most cases, the surface cannot be restored…

22. It’s a petty offence and so are you Skippy.

23. Kilroy was here……

24. Occam – Bring back the paddle, let them keep their precious licence! This is just another case of selfishness on the part of the so-called artist. If I caught the little bastard doing it to my property, he will have wished they had only taken his f**king licence. It is a show of disrespect to others who have gone out of their way to beautify their property or to inform people of their wares.

25. Paul in calgary – was your spelling worse than it is now, along with the sytax? This isn’t art, I have never seen graffito of any talent, certainly not an experession of beauty.