Aerosol Art Proposal to Be Revised : Murals: Lack of enforcement measures prompts Huntington Beach City Council to send back the plan allowing painting on seaside retaining wall.

HUNTINGTON BEACH —  The City Council on Monday sent back to the drawing board a plan to allow aerosol art and other paintings on a seaside retaining wall.

In a straw vote, the council rejected a motion to test the program for six months and asked backers of the proposal to add a stronger anti-graffiti enforcement element.

As proposed by the city’s Community Services Department, the program would issue daylight-hour permits for muralists and other artists, including some who create works on outdoor surfaces with spray paint. The plan also requires that images be “in good taste” and non-commercial. Planners said they hoped that the permit system and peer pressure would deter unwanted graffiti.

Mayor Peter M. Green and Councilman Jack Kelly favored the test period. But councilwoman Linda Moulton-Patterson, who abstained along with Councilmen Don MacAllister and Earle Robitaille, said she didn’t think that peer pressure would suffice and that she would not support a program without a stronger enforcement aspect.

“I’d like to see some one look into a city ban on the sale of spray paint to minors,” or the establishment of a 24-hour hot line for reporting graffiti vandalism, she said.

The wall in question extends about a mile north of the Huntington Beach Pier. Because the city has no formal policy restricting use of the wall, colorful aerosol artworks as well as crude graffiti have appeared during the past year over traditional murals that decorate the wall. Some residents and city officials, concerned over the graffiti on the wall and surrounding property, opposed the program.