Writing Grafitti is legalized in Seattle
foxnews.com
foxnews.com
Actual content: "A U.S. district court has ruled that Seattle must temporarily cease enforcement of property crimes with regard to graffiti.
Judge Marsha Pechman of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington issued a preliminary injunction, saying the city's ordinance that punishes graffiti "targets speech" and "poses a real and substantial threat of censorship."
"On its face, the Ordinance sweeps so broadly that it criminalizes innocuous drawings (from a child’s drawing of a mermaid to pro-police messages written by the Seattle Police Foundation) that can hardly be said to constitute 'visual blight' and which would naturally wash away in the next rain storm."
Create a graffiti park. Simply choose an existing city or county park or lot, erect some long but cheap plywood walls, and invite taggers to come display their handiwork every weekend, in broad daylight, with no fear of recrimination. Leave everything as-is for a week-long display (even photograph the tags every Monday for inclusion in the city's or county's web site, with appropriate credits to the "artists"), then every Friday whitewash the walls for re-tagging that upcoming weekend.
Put up flyers advertising the park everywhere spray paint is sold, and taggers won't be able to resist. They'll use the park instead of damaging public property, because the park walls will become THE place to show off and compare their work. It'll become a weekly graffiti contest. There could even be judged competitions. Once they use and enjoy the park, they won't want to tag elsewhere, because illegal tags won't gain any interest or attention like they'll find at the park, and taggers won't get any respect if they don't compete at the park. (Besides, anyone will be able to compare park tags with illegal tags elsewhere and immediately know who did the damage.) The taggers will probably even voluntarily do the Friday whitewashing, and you might be able to get paint stores to donate their unwanted leftovers for that purpose. You could use portable panels, and move the whole show to a different location every few months as an interesting event.
For some cheap walls, a few gallons of weekly whitewash, and almost no labor, graffiti can become one more cool thing about a city, instead of being a yearly drain on taxpayers.
In 2013 I read San Franciso spent $20 million (!) per year to clean up graffiti. That's over $54,000 every day. That's $86,000 for every square mile of the city every year. That was $25 per day for every person in the entire city population.
If those figures are true, why not offer a new reward of $25,000 every single day for any tagger caught (both physically and on video) and subsequently convicted. Bounty hunters will immediately start surveillance wherever necessary, graffiti will plummet, and you'll be saving $10 million per year (even if you pay out $25,000 every day).
I can imagine this leading to a perverse incentive/cobra effect, in that there are people in many places with no financial ability to pay a fine who don't mind going to jail for a month or whatever. I like your ideas in general though, I just think they need a little refinement; maybe just combine them.
"The term cobra effect was coined by economist Horst Siebert based on an anecdote of an occurrence in India during British rule. The British government, concerned about the number of venomous cobras in Delhi, offered a bounty for every dead cobra. Initially, this was a successful strategy; large numbers of snakes were killed for the reward. Eventually, however, enterprising people began to breed cobras for the income. When the government became aware of this, the reward program was scrapped. When cobra breeders set their now-worthless snakes free, the wild cobra population further increased."
But this has nothing to do with the injunction the judge made, which were against protesters using temporary chalk on sidewalks outside of a police station.
> On its face, the Ordinance sweeps so broadly that it criminalizes innocuous drawings (from a child’s drawing of a mermaid to pro-police messages written by the Seattle Police Foundation) that can hardly be said to constitute 'visual blight' and which would naturally wash away in the next rain storm," Pechman wrote.
So basically the ordinance is poorly written.
The injunction was awarded against:
> Pechman’s order was in response to a lawsuit filed by four people who were arrested in 2021 for writing anti-cop slogans in temporary chalk outside a police precinct.
So...I think we can agree that four people writing anti-cop slogans using temporary chalk outside a police precint...at least is not property destruction.
Actually, if you actually read the ruling, the impetus for it is quite reasonable, but perhaps worded too vaguely.