Burlington Cracks Down On Graffiti

Burlington, Vermont -- November 25, 2006

The city of Burlington has fought what sometimes looks like a losing battle against graffiti. As fast as the spray-painted and stenciled markings can be removed, they appear again. But this week, city police got the upper hand.

Some call it art, but from city officials' and business owners' point of view, graffiti is a blight. And there's a lot of it. "You can drive around the city of Burlington and see tags all over the place," observed Lt. Scott Davidson of the Burlington Police Dept.

There would be a lot more, if it weren't for cleanups coordinated by city officials and business leaders. Police chief Tom Tremblay set the example three years ago, bringing a broom to a downtown street where he and several other people organized the effort.

This week the graffiti-painters created more work, marking up McDonald's and the Bank Street parking garage, among other businesses. The monetary damage was estimated in the thousands of dollars. A few blocks away in the Old North End, graffiti hit the Rose Street Artist's Cooperative. The artists here have debated whether or not graffiti is a problem.

Ben Wang, who's on the cooperative's maintenance committee, said, "There's some residents here who actually don't feel that it's a priority to get it off. But I think enough of us feel that we'd prefer not to have it here -- that we decided to do something about it."

The artists decided that cleaning it up was the best course of action, on the theory that graffiti begets more graffiti. Then came a couple of breaks. Police busted Devin McKenzie and William Jenne, both 16. Two days later, on Thanksgiving day, police say 17-year-old Phillip Dolson and 16-year-old Richard Schneehagen were caught red-handed with a graffiti kit.

The pair looked incredulous as Burlington Police Sgt. Paul Glynn told them they were under arrest. "Their contention was that they weren't really damaging property," Glynn told Channel 3.

The police don't buy the notion that graffiti is harmless. As Glynn phrased it, "The city's stand is that it costs in the form of cleanup. People see the graffiti, they feel that perhaps there are other underlying crimes that are going on. And it's just a general feeling of being unsafe that drives business away from our downtown. So we take it seriously."

Seriously enough that the young men charged with vandalism will find themselves with a criminal record -- unless they qualify for court diversion.