July 10, 2003
BY FRANK WITSIL
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
A clear coating designed to repel urban art is defacing the red brick walls of the suburban high school it was supposed to protect, the Birmingham School District alleged in a lawsuit filedin U.S. District Court.
The school district said in the suit filed June 30, a Graffiti Solution System made by Sandy, Utah-based American Polymer Corp. and distributed by Holland, Ohio-based OCP Contractors Inc. was applied to the outside of Seaholm High School in 2000.
Since then, the school district's attorney Dennis Pollard said, the coating has turned a white color. The district has asked for more than $75,000 to pay for repairs.
The school applied the product as part of a multimillion-dollar renovation completed in 2002, Pollard said. Of the district's 13 schools, it is the only one with such a coating, he said.
But, American Polymer president Michael Macris said, the problem is with the walls -- which were pitted and pocked from sandblasting done to remove graffiti long before the coating was applied.
"The coating works," Macris said.
He said no one had ever sued the 13-year-old company for having a faulty product. And, he said, the company advised the school that the walls, as they were, would not properly accept the coating.
The company wrote a Jan. 5, 2001, letter to the contractor, D.C. Byers Co. in Detroit saying it would offer the coating for reapplication, but that it still would not adhere to the school's bricks unless they were restored.
The company got no response, Macris said.
A spokesman for OCP Contractors said the company has not distributed the product or been affiliated with American Polymer since 2001. He declined additional comment.
Pollard said American Polymer approved of the surface the coating was applied to and was contacted several times. He said the company's offer to replace the coating was too little to late, because it will cost much more to remove and recoat the walls.