Legal Information

SF Graffiti taggers could face a much bigger price tag

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Graffiti taggers could face a much bigger price tag

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/nevius/article/Graffiti-taggers-could-fac…

Graffiti in San Francisco is a mess - literally and figuratively. That's not a scoop, it is merely a discouraging reality.

It begins with the city being a mecca for spray paint vandals from across the…

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SF Takes Aim at Graffiti Vandals

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SF takes aim at graffiti vandals, tries to lessen burden on victims
Posted by Joshua Sabatini on Tue, Mar 18, 2014 at 7:29 PM

Supervisor London Breed has introduced legislation targeting graffiti vandals; police made 203 graffiti-related arrests in 2013, most of them adults.

San Francisco’s $20-million-a-year graffiti problem has seemingly caused more problems for victimized property owners and public agencies than for the vandals.

But now the City Attorney’s Office could be allowed to go after graffiti vandals in civil proceedings that would force them to pay for the damage and perform community service.

Supervisor London Breed and other city officials say the current process does not work and penalizes the victims, since property owners must remove graffiti within 30 days or face fines.

“We estimate that over 90 percent of the graffiti offenses are committed by the same people,” Breed said Tuesday, when she also introduced…

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Stencil graffiti practically legal in NYC - if you're white and wearing a suit

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I Got Myself Arrested So I Could Look Inside the Justice System

By Bobby Constantino
Left to right: A snapshot of the author's graffiti; a "selfie" of the author, dressed in his suit and tie and ready to vandalize; a surveillance video still of the work in progress (Bobby Constantino)

 

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/12/i-got-myself-arrest…

Ten years ago, when I started my career as an assistant district attorney in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, I viewed the American criminal justice system as a vital institution that protected society…

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Legal Dept: Techies Developing Apps to Fight Graffiti

Submitted by russell on

Just a few examples from a simple Google search:

Graffiti Buster: http://www.troyweb.com/graffiti-buster/
Since the days of Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire, graffiti has adorned the walls of our urban neighborhoods. In modern times, spray paint and marker pens have become the most commonly used graffiti materials. Graffiti is a quality-of-life issue that can result in costly cleanup and lowered property values. It generates the perception of blight. The appearance of graffiti is often perceived by residents and passers-by as a sign that a downward spiral in a neighborhood has begun, even though this may not be true.

The Graffiti Buster App was created as another tool to combat blighting graffiti in our neighborhoods. With the app, the reporting of graffiti is now streamlined, providing all needed information directly to municipal authorities. Reporting graffiti for cleanup is now as easy…

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Woman Arrested for Instagramming Street Art

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Woman Arrested for Instagramming Street Art
by Hrag Vartanian on April 4, 2013

Original here: http://hyperallergic.com/68151/artist-arrested-for-instagramming-street…

20-year-old artist Jennifer Pawluck was arrested Wednesday morning at 10:30am after posting a picture of anti-police street art on her Instagram feed a few days before.

“Many of my friends do not like the police,” Pawluck told the Huffington Post Québec in French. “I thought it would be funny to put the picture on Instagram. I do not even know who he is, Ian Lafrenière.”

Pawluck…

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Graffiti Conference Seeks Public's Help

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Graffiti conference seeks public's help
S.F. CRIME
Neal J. Riley
Published 4:51 pm, Thursday, January 17, 2013

Graffiti is a more than $20 million-a-year problem in San Francisco, and though city officials put out a call Thursday to eradicate graffiti blight, there's still disagreement on how vandals should be punished.

At the first Zero Graffiti International Conference, hundreds of people from around the world gathered at St. Mary's Cathedral to discuss fighting graffiti and browse products to take spray paint and markers off any surface.

"Graffiti vandalism is a drain on our city's resources, impacting our neighborhoods and quality of life," said George Gascón, San Francisco's district attorney. "We ask the public to help out by reporting graffiti crime."

Split over penalties

Mohammed Nuru, the Department of Public Works director, said his agency takes an average of 3,000 calls a month about graffiti and has seen an…

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SF's Zero Graffiti Conference Goes International

Submitted by russell on

Back in 2009, San Francisco's DPW held a Zero Graffiti conference. They released a video talking about problems of blight (i.e., graffiti) that cities face across the world. Out of curiosity and continued research on how people interact and react to graffiti, public art, etc., I attended the event. Beyond the government hurrumphing and back patting (for spending millions of dollars to not solve a "problem"), I was impressed by all the statistics that the City government presented that day: stats that showed complaints and arrests (not many arrests) in a zoned SF. There was also talk of new technologies for detecting spray paint on a wall, but I do not know if this has advanced since then.

For 2013, Zero Graffiti has gone international.…

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Oakland Might Get Tough on Graffiti

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Going After Graffiti

A new law proposed by Oakland's city attorney would impose fines on both taggers and property owners.
By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor

from the East Bay Express: http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/going-after-graffiti/Content?oid=3396…

With graffiti becoming an increasingly serious problem in large areas of Oakland, the Oakland City Attorney's Office is proposing a new city ordinance that would impose financial penalties on persons convicted of applying graffiti to property within the city and on property owners who fail to remove graffiti in a timely manner. The proposal is scheduled to receive its first hearing before the city council's Public Works Committee on November 27.

If passed as proposed, the new ordinance would also impose fines on parents of minors convicted of graffiti offenses, as well as upgrade tagging from an infraction to a…

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HuffPost Discusses Fair Use and Copyright within Street Art

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Watch it here.
You can also read about Shepard Fariey's copyright infringement settlement with the Associated Press here (LA Times).
 

Mayor: We’ll Arrest and Prosecute Park Vandals

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Mayor: We’ll Arrest and Prosecute Park Vandals

By: Rigoberto Hernandez | June 19, 2012 – 3:24 pm (link to posting)

The vandals of Dolores Park and Potrero Del Sol have gained a new powerful enemy: Mayor Ed Lee.

Today, during the mayor’s question time at the Board of Supervisors meeting, Lee promised to take steps to curb the vandalism that has hit city parks recently.

The Helen Diller playground at Dolores Park, for example, was vandalized just days after opening in April. Vandals marked the playground with graffiti and removed six of the 14 metal keys from the xylophone, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

“Crimes of vandalism and graffiti are an assault on our public resources,” Lee said. “It’s shameful.”

Here is how the mayor promised to curb the vandalism:

  • The Parks and Recreation Department is working with food vendors…
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