Cranbourne Leader
Edition 1 -WED 27 NOV 2002, Page 005
Cranny now
graffiti free

CRANBOURNE is graffiti free and within 12 months the rest of Casey should be as well.
Residents Against Graffiti Everywhere (RAGE) lobby group president Steve Beardon said it had only taken six months for more than 7000sqm of graffiti to be removed from the suburb.
That was thanks to a Casey Council agreement that its contractors would remove graffiti within 24 hours of it being reported.
``When we started, we were faxing two A4 pages listing vandalised sites to the council each week and there was more than that about,'' Mr Beardon said.
``It is now less than half a page on most occasions and many of these incidents are on property council cannot deal with, such as electrical boxes, railway property and power poles.
``The council has done a great job in dealing with the problem of graffiti.''
But the council last week hesitated at the last minute to introduce its much-heralded local law, banning the sale of aerosol spray paints to under-18s.
Councillors were poised to finally introduce the local law to make it illegal to sell spray paint to minors, illegal for minors to possess spray paint and requiring retailers to lack spray paints away.
But Cr Wayne Smith called for the final vote to be deferred until after the State election.
``The two parties seem to have differing views with Labor pushing (more voluntary controls) and the Liberal a more definite ban,'' Cr Smith said.
To report graffiti: phone 1800 826 325 (1800 VANDAL).