Canned Heat

[August 1st, 2007]

The mortgage broker's smile beams streetward from her photo on a bus-stop bench along East Burnside Street. Across the bridge of her nose, someone has scrawled the words "money cunt."

Banksy it ain't.

If we are to believe what the local television news says, Portland is the new Rome, beset by vandals.

There has been "a staggering rise" in illicit graffiti, KATU claimed last week. KGW, meanwhile, found a spree of "swear words, racist words, even Marxism" in North Portland. (Not Marxism!) And the desecration of a downtown fountain was reported by The Oregonian, complete with a quote from city Commissioner Randy Leonard, who is preparing to save the day with an anti-tagging ordinance.

Leonard wants to make people show ID when they buy spray paint. Businesses would have to keep records for several months of who bought the paint, as well as the paint's color, for the benefit of police investigating graffiti. Retailers who fail to comply could face big fines, perhaps as high as $20,000.

The commissioner says he intends his ordinance to target larger chain retailers such as Home Depot and Wal-Mart, who he says have ignored the city's existing anti-graffiti program, which is voluntary. Among other things, the voluntary program urges "responsible retailers" to stop selling large cans of spray paint to kids.

The ordinance, which Leonard will bring to the City Council within the next couple of weeks, does not include age restrictions. This makes sense, because officials believe the city's most prolific taggers—25 to 30 in number—are older than 18.

Aaron Johnson, Leonard's policy adviser to the Office of Public Safety, says the proposed ordinance would leave the size of any fines up to the city's code hearings officer, who would be responsible for enforcement. "A mom-and-pop shop, he wouldn't be hit as hard as Home Depot," Johnson says.

The chief problem with Leonard's approach, say Portlanders plugged into the graffiti culture, is that it won't work.

"It's not going to hurt our sales," says Cody McElroy, who works at the Office, a skate shop that sells markers and paint, located across from the unfortunately marked broker's bus bench. "Taking down lots of information, that's just more of a pain in the ass for me."

McElroy says he refuses to sell to teenagers who openly brag about their vandalism. And when the shop gets tagged, he helps clean up. Graffiti, in his view, is part of life. "Kids are always going to do stupid shit," McElroy says.

Peter Nathaniel, who runs a "graffiti rehabilitation" clinic through his North Portland art shop, Hart Mind Soul, thinks Leonard's plan won't faze vandals. "Most of those kids are stealing paint," he says. Though Nathaniel prefers to steer vandals toward legal forms of art as part of his "rehab" clinic, he says better enforcement of existing vandalism laws would make a bigger difference than ID checks.

Marcia Dennis, Portland's graffiti-abatement coordinator, says Leonard's plan is worth a try. However, she did volunteer that it was his idea.

Between Jan. 1 and July 26 of 2006, Dennis' office counted 1,708 reports of graffiti. In the same period this year, she got 2,621 reports. Of course, there are two possible explanations for the 53 percent jump.

"I'm willing to say it's a combination of better reporting and more graffiti," Dennis says. "I really don't have a way of determining which is which."

Though she concedes that reporting has improved, Dennis, who has been involved with anti-graffiti efforts since the early 1990s, says vandalism has indeed increased.

If that's true, then what's the reason? A surplus of paint? Of street urchins? Is it this "hip-hop" music? Mercury pollution? Or possibly the breakdown of society?

Dennis has a cooler head than that. "I think it's partially a resource issue at the Police Bureau and perhaps at the district attorney's office," she says. Police average about 10 graffiti arrests a month, she says, but prosecuting them is another thing.

"We know they post on their websites, 'Well, I got arrested, but I got home in time to have dinner,' or, 'I went back and finished my tag,'" Dennis says.

And about the tags—Portland's graffiti problem is not just quantity, it's quality.

In online forums, "graff" aficionados complain of the amateurish, pedestrian style of Portland tags. Special disdain is reserved for the scribblers of LMV X3, a Latino gang (or collection of wannabe kids, depending).

"I don't see the same kind of creativity where there's more of an aggressive graffiti culture—like, say, Chicago," says Nathaniel. "I see a lot of scribbles, as opposed to full-on artwork."

McElroy doesn't appreciate such fine distinctions. "It all looks like garbage to me," he says.