Graffiti ordinance comes back April 20

Combating graffiti is never an easy task: It takes collaboration among law enforcement officials, city management, graffiti removal staff and council members, according to a discussion at Tuesday’s City Council meeting.

The difficulties of containing the issue came to a head when an ordinance designed to make it more difficult for taggers to deface the city came before the Costa Mesa City Council for approval.

After two hours of back-and-forth debate, the council voted to continue the item until April 20.

The new ordinance would tighten restrictions on businesses by prohibiting them from selling pressurized cans containing paint or dye, marking pens, adhesive stickers or etchers, among other tagging tools, to anyone younger than 18.

It would also require businesses to keep products like drills or spray paint behind locked glass or in sight of an employee during business hours.

The ordinance would also hold parents and guardians accountable if their children are caught tagging public or private properties, and would require utility companies to remove graffiti from their equipment within 48 hours, go after vandals to recover the costs of removing the graffiti and require offenders to complete community service.

Councilman Eric Bever said he felt uneasy about the restrictions placed on businesses.

City staff will reword some of the language in the ordinance before the April 20 meeting.

“What we really want to pay special attention to is how it may affect local businesses and how it’ll affect the victim of graffiti vandalism and how you get a policy that focuses on problems from more than one angle,” said Officer Jason Chamness of the Costa Mesa Police Department’s gang unit.

Updating the ordinance is another step toward zooming in on the issue and making it difficult for vandals to get away with their crimes.

Recently, the city began using a computer program designed to document graffiti incidents — from their size and the cost to remove them to their moniker — and share them with other police agencies to track down vandals.

The Tracking and Automated Graffiti Reporting System (TAGRS), which was designed by an engineer from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, has so far helped the Costa Mesa solve 110 cases, Chamness said.