Last week, we reported that many businesses along 45th Street had been tagged with graffiti, and the comments that we received from our neighbors about coming together to clean up the mess inspired us to want to help out, too. So, we did a little digging and located Daniel Sims, the Seattle Public Utilities contact in charge of Graffiti Education and Outreach. Here’s what we learned from Daniel:
If you are interested in removing graffiti from private property, we offer paint, supplies, and a wagon to use for carting all your supplies. You can e-mail me at [email protected].
We ask that you fill out this form and get permission from the property owners to remove graffiti from their property. We also have a very active “Graffiti Sheriff” in the neighborhood, his name is Gene Slagle. His email address: [email protected].
Earlier this week, reader Kimberly C. wrote to tell us that more tagging had occurred along N. 40th Street:
Sunday morning, I discovered on a walk that lower Wallingford had been tagged in a big way. Several fences along 40th Street, the side of Irwin’s Café, a neighbor’s truck, and another neighbor’s garage door were all defaced with blue spray paint. The most grievous offense, however, was the tagging of the tent camper that belongs to my nextdoor neighbors Pat and Joan. Now, Pat and Joan are retired school teachers, animal lovers, talented folk musicians, devoted surrogate grandmothers to my children, and just about the nicest people ever.
I took an immediate liking to them when I found out that they, already retirees, had headed downtown during the WTO protests to join with other ordinary people in protesting an unjust global economy. I am happy to be their neighbor, so this tagging really got under my skin.
I was tempted to snark about teenagers until this morning, when I saw my other next door neighbor, Carsen, out front helping Joan wash the paint off the trailer. Carsen is 19, and while she has never been one of “those” type of teenagers, it was a wonderful affirmation of the goodness of teens to see her cheerfully lending a hand and it convinced me that I live at the best address in all of Wallingford!
Follow these steps when reporting graffiti:
- Use the Online Report Form or call the City’s Graffiti Report Line at (206) 684-7587 to report graffiti on public property, or on private property that has persisted for a period of time.
- Make a police report to (206) 625-5011 when graffiti appears on your property.
- If you see an act of graffiti vandalism in progress, call 911 immediately–Graffiti vandals must be caught in the act to be prosecuted.
- When graffiti appears on your home, apartment building, or business, take a photo to document for insurance purposes. After the police document the vandalism, remove or paint over the graffiti immediately.
We want to say thanks to the neighborhood and local businesses for their quick response to this issue. It is nice to see such a large community outreach coming together, while trying to put a stop to the graffiti in Wallingford.
FWIW, I reported graffiti on the north wall of Meridian Park / Good Shepard Center on 50th over a month ago using the online form. No one has replied or done anything to remove it.
Hey how about inviting all the taggers to a BIG party. A nice abandon building where they can tag, eat, drink and listen to music. When they’re all done…….lock em in and arrest all of them. HAVE THEM CLEAN UP THE PROPERTIES THEY’VE VANDALIZED!!!!
If one person writes back and has the nerve to say that it’s “art”, than they can pitch in and help clean the countless buildings, fences, and beautifully painted viaducts that have been ruined by these rats that come out at night.
another situation where i wish the community groups’ knowledge would be requested!
the Chamber of Commerce here, at the Wallingford Neighborhood Office, has always offered support for businesses, and can assist community members regarding graffiti removal.
we share our Graffiti Sheriff with Fremont – he runs AAA Mailing & Print Services down on Stone Way.
Gene will help paint out graffiti and can advise on pressure washing of same, and more. we have helped get rid of lots of graffiti over the last several years.
i also like that idea of mike’s!
Here’s a really simple “solution”: It seems that the old Tubs Building down on Roosevelt in the University District has become tagger central in the past couple of years. I’ve actually witnessed taggers working openly – IN BROAD DAYLIGHT – with absolutely no police interference, as they cover every available square inch of this formerly beautiful stone-faced structure. I was even told by several neighboring business owners that the building has become an unofficial graffiti site with absolutely no repercussions for open vandalism.
Here’s my thought: Why not 1) Install webcams to record and/or publicly display the taggers and their respective work and 2) use this to provide more material that the police can add to their database of styles and signatures for identification purposes. It could probably also help our own neighborhood as all of this information starts to get shared openly among everyone online. Making things transparent is a two-edged sword, I agree. However, in this example, it would seem to me that taggers are basically looking for public attention so giving them more attention than they expected may well be the best way to counter this neighborhood plague.
You want more attention? You got it! Every action – good or bad – should have consequences, unintended or not…
Have you seen Tubs? The graffiti there is not at all like what we are seeing pop up on 45th.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_fMquiCHjvUU/SbwyDzC4VLI/AAAAAAAAB-U/wpCdoHcjN1w/s400/tubs_6.jpg
That isn’t a guy with a can of spray paint. Those pieces involve time and skill. Trying to get evidence on the people working at Tubs won’t do anything to solve the problem of malicious tagging.
http://northseattleherald-outlook.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=28638&SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&S=1
this story included much on Tubs.
the Chamber Alliance, which meets every 2 months, has often discussed this and hosted folks from a few city depts who deal with graffiti. a major budget-cut-program was the city’s directly dealing w/ graffiti. this is a good example of what the communities must deal with, on their own, more and more.
go to the mayor’s town hall thing next week at Univ Heights Center and speak out!
Person:
Well, I can tell you I saw a teenager tagging Tubs a couple of months ago with the same tag that I noticed later in a lot of other places in the U. District. Same person? Possibly…
I think the ones I saw were “KRAB” and “7.7.7”
Sorry guys but if Tubs is “OK” in the eyes of the police then who cares….really. Our immediate problem is here in OUR neighborhood. Good old fashioned Wallingford where people have respect for their surroundings.
I grew up in a much bigger city then Seattle. My answer is STOP an acronym for
Stop
Tagging
Our
Properties
I have copy rights…..
stop it before it starts
How about having to show your ID at point of purchase for spray paint!!!!
“I was tempted to snark about teenagers until this morning, when I saw my other next door neighbor, Carsen, out front helping Joan wash the paint off the trailer. Carsen is 19, and while she has never been one of “those” type of teenagers, it was a wonderful affirmation of the goodness of teens to see her cheerfully lending a hand and it convinced me that I live at the best address in all of Wallingford!”
I think it’s already pretty snarky to put forth that A) an as of yet unknown vandal must be a teenager and B) you were surprised that a teenager would be interested in helping her neighbors and better the community (and that it’s somehow exclusive to your stretch of Wallingford). Accusations and generalizations aren’t going to resolve the situation and certainly aren’t going to create a feeling of community on a community blog as I’m sure there are readers here who have both wonderful teenagers and teenagers who may have gotten into a bit of trouble over time – but still don’t need to be labeled as one of “those” type of teenagers.
I live around the corner from the trailer tagging, so I’m concerned for my property, also. But I’m more concerned about the idea that one or two (unknown) vandals can cause ill will or suspicion toward an entire subset of the community. I’m in my 30s, but I go to school with and work with teens in a far less economically sound section of Seattle (kids who a person might be tempted to label as “those”) and I can tell you the last thing anyone of that age, under any circumstance, needs is that label.
Just my two cents. Thanks.
Again, tagging is NOT a teenage boredom thing, it is DRUG RELATED. I lived next to the Wallingord dealer house for ONE decade. It is THEM. And their associates.
The dealers LIVE in the fourth white house up from Meridian and 50th, on Meridian Avenue N. The eldest dealer seen by hundreds in his deals and cars, was taken down by police when he swiped 5 cars in a bloto drug haze and was then hauled away at 7 gunpoints in front of my door! The existing brother, younger drug lord runs the biz and he is the one who orchestrates the tagging. It is NOT random.
Walk north on Meridian from 50th, and the fourth run down house, on your right, is his and his mothers. They are middle eastern, the house is paid for. He runs the empire out of it. Tagging went on daily when I lived in that neighborhood. Daily. Daily.
They are drug dealers to your kids, friends, and they will continue until YOU make them stop. I was followed by one of their now most likely dead freak junkies to rob me, my car was vandalized 8 times.
Pretending that this is normal will NOT stop these freaks. The drug lord is early 20s now and the deals are about 30 a day. To your kids. Stop him, stop the drugs, stop the traffic, stop the graffiti, Period
@Susan – What kind of prices do they get? I’m currently paying about $20 a half gram for some Colombian stuff, but the product has been really inconsistent lately and the product is hard to break up. It’s not that it’s bad per se, but when I know my current guy has a bad batch, I could really use some alternatives. I really don’t think he sells to my friends, otherwise I would have heard of him by now. If you could introduce me, I’d really appreciate it. Thanks in advance!
Flash, are you coocoo. You actually miss the point of this conversation. It IS about tagging done by people. Not any one type of people just people. Who gives a hoot who does it?
As for your obvious problem……. drugs, my suggestion would be to find help instead of a new source. But, I must admit that I find it sad to find you so amusing! I actually passed this on to friends who also think you’re either dumber than a box of rocks OR a person who just needs to grow up. Good Luck Flash may your choices reflect that of a person who goes forward…… as in making wise decisions.
well, the tagging has to stop. And it won’t stop until neighbors get together and have patrols; get your hoses ready and hose them down.. have 911 alerted which nights you plan to be active.
Think about how the Greenwood neighbors go t together to patrol when the fires were happening.
Whose neighborhoodf is it? The gangs or the tax paying working families and single folks?
Ah, c’mon, Flash is just letting a little air out of the tires before they BLO…
@Eric, I have been assured by an official poll of my household that I am not the only one who assumes that tagging is done by teenagers. Perhaps we are wrong, but that stereotype exists.
My point in writing to the blog about it, and by including a picture of my teenage neighbor helping clean up the tagging, was to remind other people that the sterotype is wrong, and in fact that caring teenagers such as Carsen exist.
At least Walkin NOSE a joke when he sees one.
As a person who was once a teenager and who had teenager friends, I can tell you that most tagging is NOT drug related, especially in neighborhoods like Wallingford. Maybe this tagging is, but chances are it has just been a couple of people between the ages of 16 and 24 who are bored and rebelling in a stupid way.
Person, 17 years ago I moved to Seattle from Chicago. At that time the head of graffiti enforcement told that there were only five people doing the graffiti. When I mentioned that if the city doesn’t do something about the tagging that this beautiful city was going to be ruined. His lack of knowledge showed when he asked what I meant by tagging? He was naive then as you are now. Tell how “a couple” of people can tag so many different names? Bored? I doubt very much if boredom plays a part in running around in the darkness of night spray painting your name on anything that can be seen the very next day.
Again, if showing your ID in order to purchase a can of spray paint will make these rats UNABLE to even buy their weapon of choice then how can it hurt to try it.
Most taggers are not teenagers – they’re usually disaffected socially inept 20-something males. Despite that fact, our hardware store (Tweedy & Popp) will not sell spray paint to anyone under 18; if you’re going to do something illegal and damaging with spray paint, I don’t have much control over it but if you’re an adult you should at least run the risk of full prosecution and penalty under the law. Unfortunately, my experience is that it’s a low priority crime for our police department; when I worked as a closing bartender at Murphy’s, I would occasionally see ‘taggers’ on N 45th at 2:00-3:00 am – I would call the police but always be told that there couldn’t be a car out for 45 minutes and asked if I could keep them under observation.