OWNING A DOG IS A WONDERFUL thing. Besides the undying love and affection they provide, they also provide a reason for interaction with a community. Three times a day my dog and I do a perimeter walk to make sure that there are no invading badgers, raccoons and other assorted unwanteds.
When we are patrolling my block, I learn the neighborhood and can see when something is amiss. I’ve had the opportunity to get to know, in a passing nod kind of way, the local homeless who populate the back alleys. I have semi regular conversations with my neighbors as we discuss the latest governmental boondoggle.
Yesterday morning, as I rounded the corner I could see that the local gang youths had decided to target, again, a wall with their markings. The graffiti was back, and it was the usual gang related tags and code to mark their territory like a dog lifting his leg.
I was dismayed by this, not just because the taggers cannot spell, but also because it is a perennial problem that seems to have no easy solution, and more importantly, it seems that there is no will to make a dent in the problem.
It seemed to me that the government was doing little to address the problem, and as usual, what it was doing was designed to punish the wrong people. I reviewed the Santa Monica Municipal Code (SMMC) on graffiti abatement and found it to be woefully weak, and attacks the victim, much like a defense attorney attacks a rape victim for “asking for it.”
The SMMC reads in relevant part: “ (a) The City Council finds that proliferation of graffiti, especially gang-related graf-fiti, presents an imminent danger to the public safety and welfare. … (c) The Director of Environmental and Public Works Management shall provide the owner of the property subject to abatement action under this Section with written notice specifying the date that the City will abate the graffiti. …It shall inform the owner that the City will not undertake the abatement if the owner notifies the City in writing that the owner will abate the graffiti by a date specific acceptable to the City. The cost of abatement performed by the City shall be recovered ….”
What this means is that when the property owner gets “tagged” by a gang member, the city makes them clean it up, and if they don’t do it in a timely manner, the city will do it for you and then send you, the property owner, a bill. Nowhere in all of this is the actual tagger addressed, or more importantly the tagger’s parents.
Los Angeles County has just taken the logical, but weak, step of making the parents of these taggers financially responsible for the abatement costs, which runs approximately $1,000 to clean up the graffiti, and to prosecute the little *#(&!$)%s who do this psychopathic behavior.
However, I think that, again, it is not attacking the problem at the best leverage point. We have gang members and their parents, who are coming from the lowest economic strata, they are the least likely to have the funds to pay the fines that are to be levied. And putting them in jail only makes the total cost to society of this blight higher, and that makes no sense.
Arizona has a bill pending that would allow the court to have the parents assist in community service, if several criteria are met, which I think is better but still too weak.
The law we need should be that the parents have to do community service in the removal of this type of graffiti. It’s the only way to cost effectively put pressure on the gang members, through their parents, to stop this public nuisance.
Taking money from poor people is stupid and most likely fruitless, as we’ll spend more going after it, than we’ll ever recover. Putting them in jail just costs those who pay property taxes, more money and does not change minds.
I’d like to see the progressive city of Santa Monica be really progressive on this issue, and pass an ordinance that the parents of taggers must perform community service in cleaning up the graffiti their children cause.
After all, I have to clean up after my dog marks his territory, why shouldn’t parents have to clean up after their kids who mark their territory?
DAVID PISARRA is a family law attorney focusing on father’s rights and men’s Issues in the Santa Monica firm of Pisarra & Grist. He or (310) 664- 9969.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 26, 2008. Read the original PDF.