Drawing up plans in city’s grinding battle with graffiti

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This article was published 05/08/2023 (1032 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Throughout downtown Winnipeg, new graffiti tags appear on outside business walls, overlapping previous attempts to cover them.

“The whole city is one big sketchbook full of blank spaces and hidden alleyways for people to practise,” said a 21-year-old graffiti tagger and artist (who spoke to the Free Press anonymously to avoid vandalism charges).

“It’s more than just people destroying stuff. It’s a whole community of people just being creative and those who are tired of using a pen and paper.”

Those who spray paint their name or “tags” are seeking to gain recognition for their artwork within the community. Tagging in noticeable areas of the city, such as bridges or along busy streets, adds an element of thrill, he said.

For every tag that appears on a wall, there’s always 20 more people wanting to do the same thing, making graffiti removal “pointless.”

“Where there is a bare wall, there’s an opportunity for someone to tag it,” said Tom Ethans, executive director of Take Pride Winnipeg.

From May to August, the organization’s graffiti removal program employs youth to clean up graffiti on private and public buildings, as well as park benches, bridges and other structures.

So far this summer, its crew of three has removed more than 1,000 tags, with many businesses having an average of seven on their property.

Illegal graffiti is a deterrent, and it sends a message a neighbourhood is unsafe and unkempt, said Ethans.

The prevalence of graffiti vandalism may impact a neighbourhood by lowering the price of housing, preventing businesses or homeowners from wanting to buy or rent spaces, and creating a negative perception of the area, he added.

However, rapid graffiti removal — within 24 to 48 hours — reduces the chance of being tagged again, Ethans said.

He advises tagged businesses to immediately contact 311 to ensure a trained removal crew properly colour matches the affected surface and keeps an eye out for future touch-ups.

The City of Winnipeg recommends property owners include fencing, clinging vegetation such as ivy, increased lighting and motion-sensor lighting to reduce large potential graffiti surfaces and crime in the area.

There isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution to cleaning up graffiti consistently, but a few community-based preventative measures could make a positive change, said longtime inner-city advocate Sel Burrows.

“Kids vote with their feet. If there’s a good program going on, then they’ll show up in huge numbers,” he said.

There’s a difference between inner-city artists who express themselves through graffiti art versus tagging random businesses as a means to deface them, advocates said.

Burrows said he’s not in favour of anybody spray painting somebody’s wall, but thinks it’s worth identifying who’s doing it, so they can take graffiti art programming, learn other mediums and possibly be contracted for a beautification project.

The Winnipeg Police Service groups graffiti vandalism investigations under the broad category of mischief, which accounts for one-third of property crimes.

There were 1,825 reported incidents of mischief downtown from April 2022 to March 2023. This is a 32 per cent increase compared to last year, and 52 per cent higher than the five-year average.

In addition to programming, making spray paint cans harder to obtain would help eliminate another small piece, said Burrows, who claimed spray cans were displayed openly at several Canadian Tire locations.

A City of Winnipeg bylaw requires retailers to lock up cans or store them in a way that’s inaccessible without an employee’s permission to purchase. The bylaw, passed in November 2007, also prohibits retailers from selling cans of spray paint to anyone under 18, and they must post signs notifying the public of this restriction.

A spokesperson from Canadian Tire did not provide a comment.

The City of Winnipeg spends over $1 million annually in removing graffiti annually, and tagging is becoming an increasing problem in many neighbourhoods, said Coun. Russ Wyatt (Transcona).

“The city doesn’t look good. It looks terrible,” said Wyatt. “We have fallen so far behind in removing graffiti.”

Wyatt said he would like to ramp up current city-wide programming in partnership with the business improvement zones and graffiti removal program within public works to determine where they are unable to clean graffiti and how the programming could become more efficient.

“The scariest thing is when we become used to it, and that’s a very slippery slope because then we’ve just thrown in the towel.”

Downtown Winnipeg BIZ and West End BIZ have committed to cleaning up tags seven days per week. What slows graffiti removal crews down is needing business owners to a sign a waiver for them to access private property.

“Buildings that are graffiti-free are a way to keep downtown looking vibrant. It’s about doing what we can to keep our downtown community looking clean,” said Ken Berg, director of operations for Downtown Winnipeg BIZ.

Its removal crew has cleaned up more than 1,700 tags from April to June, he said.

City council is monitoring the success of graffiti removal until August, and the standing policy committee on public works will evaluate whether more city-wide funding is needed to remove graffiti in the fall.

tessa.adamski@freepress.mb.ca