After becoming a graffitweeter, I found out that several Cities have gone to a model that seems to get the graffiti cleaned off buildings much quicker, and have much lower overhead administrative costs, than the system of fine the property owner, e.g. New York, Denver, Chula Vista.
In San Francisco, the system is that complaint driven. And after, someone like me, makes a complaint about graffiti on a building, the City is supposed to in 48 hours inspect, post a notice, send a letter to the owner, give the owner 30. Reinspect.
A bunch of times, I'm finding out the City does not send out the notice. A bunch of times, the City closed the request with the graffiti still in place. And there are a bunch of times when five months after the report no graffiti has been cleaned. Likely after a few months of graffiti being on a building, the pro-graffiti taggers think that they "own" that space, and new graffiti will be tagged within a week of the cleanup.
So the likely result is even with someone making reports, graffiti is going to be on the building for 90 percent of the time. And there are a lot of overhead costs of inspection. hearings, aggravation when the City closes reports without taking action.
Also, there is a definite aspect of making the victim of graffiti pay for the crime, while the City is partly to blame because it has not been good about trying to stop graffiti itself.
That's reasons why I would support the type of program they have in Denver and New York where if the owner chooses to sign the City a permission / release of liability form, the City will paint out the graffiti.
(This is a quick note, I'd write it more carefully if I thought many peeps would read it.
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