Graffiti Free P.G. Back in Full Swing
(at right, members of Groundwork cover up graffiti on a community hall – photo 250News archive)
The program is simple enough. Residents or businesses fill out an application form, and if approved, the team from GroundWork P.G. will do the work.
Groundwork is a team of men, parolees, who are transitioning from incarceration back into the community. Being part of GroundWork gives them an opportunity to give something back to the community.
“We have already received about a dozen applications” says Cheryl Livingstone-Leman, Community Co Ordinator with the City of Prince George. She says the team is working to paint over the graffiti as quickly as possible “The sooner the graffiti is painted over, the more effective the program.” Studies indicate that if graffiti is not removed or covered for a week, it is almost certain more graffiti will show up in the that area, or in the nearby community.
There are two parts to the program, with the City administering one and the Downtown Business Improvement Association administering the other. DBIA (Downtown Prince George) Executive Director Carla Johnston expects GroundWork to start painting over graffiti in the downtown by the end of this week “We’ve been doing an inventory, and the amount of graffiti is far less than it was last year.”
The City has been working with the Prince George RCMP to identify the vandals responsible for the graffiti ” Graffiti is vandalism, it is a crime” says Livingstone-Leman, “Often the symbols and words can be hurtful”. Graffiti removal is also part of a plan to reduce crime. When an area is plagued with graffiti it leaves the impression the area is not safe, that no one cares, or the neighbourhood can’t cope with the problem.
The City is relying on residents to report graffiti so it can be dealt with as soon as possible. The program runs as long as the weather is suitable for painting, last year it ran from May until October. Applications to have graffiti removed from private property can be found here.
Comments
isn’t council wonderful, they give the taggers a nice new clean canvas to work on, regularly.
We paint over the graffiti at the ball diamonds regularly and they don’t stay clean for more then a day. The neighbours call the cops when they see it happening but they never show up quickly enough to stop it.
In my travels I have seen some very nice graffiti. And yet in pg I have seen none. Just a bunch of untalented morons with a spray can.
I’m with P Val. I’m a huge fan of talented graffiti artists. That said, tagging is stupid, ugly, and trashy. I think our community would be well suited to dedicate an entire alley or something to quality graffiti. I think it would look awesome.
2 possible solutions:
1 When the graffitist is caught, sentence them to paint murals over the unwanted, messy graffiti. This will make them take some ownership of the project.
2 praxair has a dry ice blaster they hav been trying to sell to the city for this purpose, but the city is not listening or is not interested.
Prince George has very few talented taggers, whose work have an artistic quality to it. No, aspiring Banksy’s in this stagnant urban northern centre. The majority of graffiti in this city is probably gang related, just so much scribble that marks out gang territory and hangouts.
90 percent of the graffiti is by a select few taggers. If you look they all are the same thing or have the same type of “bubble writing”. Faks or Help (must be a female as no guy would paint bubble hearts) is very common as are a few others. You can almost tell when one moves to a different location in the city because the graffiti follows the (I use the term loosely) artist. Catch these select few and you will reduce the incidence of graffiti by leaps and bounds. But it may put the GroundWork guys out of work
I’m with P Val and Summit. There are a few designated spaces here in Ottawa where graffiti is permitted and encouraged and it is actually amazing artwork.
I suspect the main issue in PG is that the graffiti is not intended to be art, it is simply vandalism or like Sophic Sage suggests, gang related. This stuff needs to be cleaned up but the city should also consider providing space for folks to take part in genuine graffiti art.
In case anyone is interested (remove the space between the p and colon before pasting into your browser):
http ://ottawa.ca/en/residents/water-and-environment/green-living/working-together-stop-graffiti
It has been show over and over and over again that allowing grafitti in certain areas DOES NOT work. It all starts well but then once the designated area gets filled up it starts to leak outwards. It also has the added down side of making grafitti “acceptable” so it actually gets worse in other areas.
Tagging and art are two very different things. There are no “grafitti artists” in PG, only vandals.
I believe with this comment I am up to 6 comments today, but I will use it to thank NMG for the link he provided. I like the part about; “Under the Parental Responsibility Act, parents are financially responsible for property loss, damage or destruction intentionally caused by their children who are under 18 years of age.”
BC has its own Parent Liability Act, those that are interested can view it here:
www. bclaws.ca/Recon/document/ID/freeside/00_01045_01
Copy and paste to your browser address bar, then delete the space between the www. and the b
We have an Anti Graffiti paint at work we tried to sell to the city, clear like water, dosent affect the color or sheen of whatever its applied to, cheap, and paint and markers etc.wont adhere and hose off with water. Go figure, City has no interest at all.
Should have night bike patrol, if you wanted to catch anyone.
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