Neighborhood Council to Appoint Graffiti Committee Tonight


by Roger Templeton

October 9– Venice's Neighborhood Council will set up a special graffiti committee, today, Monday, October 9, to propose options for combating the rampant growth of tagging and graffiti vandalism in the area.

The rise in complaints about such to the LAPD and other City offices prompted LAPD to request that the neighborhood council and local residents ask the Los Angeles City Council to tear Venice’s famed “Graffiti Wall" in the hopes that by removing the wall as a draw for graffiti artists from throughout Los Angeles, tagging would diminish.

The world-famous wall was instituted in 2000 to set aside a legal, "safe passage" place for graffiti artists to display their talent.

"It's a source of problems in [Venice]," said Officer Robin Richards. "The people park their vehicle in the neighborhood to graffiti on the Wall, and then graffiti on their way back to their vehicle," he said.

Officer Richards observed that, while painting within the graffiti pit area is legal, "it's illegal everywhere else."

"We have made arrests and then the court wants to know, 'how far away from the wall were they?'" Richards said. "And that makes it hard to get a conviction."

"There's always been tagging," observed Victor Jauregui, Senior Recreation Director of Venice Beach, whose office is next to the graffiti pit. "You can't say ‘it’s because of the Graffiti Wall.’ The problem is, people pick up the cans [at the pit] and use what's left in them," he said. "How do we control the cans?"

'Stash' Maleski who is Recreation and Park's designated volunteer 'curator' of the Wall concurs that discarded cans aggravate the problem, suggesting that trash receptacles that don't allow things be taken out of them, "like mailboxes," be placed around the graffiti pit. Maleski has strongly opposed the removal of the wall itself.

"We need to really define the area with signage to give the LAPD more tools, so when they stop someone outside the area they can get the charges to stick," he said.

At its September 19 meeting, Venice’s neighborhood council heard five proposals from its art committee to discourage tagging: declaring Venice a "no tag zone," clearly marking off the legal graffiti art area on the beach, having the city hire monitors, and posting signs around the area with legal warnings and info on how to get graffiti removed.

Also at the September meeting, Venice resident Rand Denny proposed five steps that the city should take: organize a task force of residents, businesspeople, the LAPD and city officials to study the problems particular to Venice, educate residents, police and the taggers with signs and a full time police 'graffiti team,' launch a "clean sweep" period of intensive graffiti removal, followed by a "hyper-vigilant" period, and finally, a 24/7 response and data collection program administered by the city.

The neighborhood council tabled the Arts committee's recommendations in the face of stakeholder's complaints, and set up a special, ad hoc committee to focus solely on the problem.

The VNC Executive Committee will discuss organizing the ad hoc graffiti committee at their Monday, October 9 meeting, 7 PM at Extra Storage Space's community room, 658 S. Venice Blvd. Council president, Dede Audet, encouraged interested stakeholders to attend the meeting and volunteer to serve on the committee.