‘Graffiti runs gamut’

Newport Beach has experienced a rash of graffiti over the past month.

The city responded to 179 complaints about graffiti in June, almost twice the number of incidents that were reported in June 2008, according to Newport’s General Services Department.

“It runs the gamut from a kid goofing off with a marking pen to pretty sophisticated designs that cover an entire wall,” said Mark Harmon, director of the Newport’s General Services Department, who oversees the city’s graffiti-abatement program.

City workers find more graffiti at local beaches and around Newport’s two piers than anywhere else, Harmon said.

Graffiti artists have also started to use abrasive chemicals to etch their artwork permanently into glass, plastic or concrete. The practice is particularly difficult and costly for city workers and city contractors to clean up, Harmon said. Workers typically have to sandblast away etched graffiti.

Painting over and sandblasting away graffiti in the city costs Newport about $70,000 a year.

Part of the city’s recent graffiti outbreak could have something to do with the weather, Newport Beach Police Lt. Craig Fox said.

Police typically note a rise in vandalism reports during the summer months, Fox said.

“You’ll see a spike when the warmer months hit, because more people are in town and more kids are out of school,” he said.

Fox estimates graffiti accounts for about 80% of vandalism reports the Police Department gets.

City officials take photographs of all the graffiti before cleaning it up and upload it to the Tracking Automated and Graffiti Reporting System, or TAGRS, a countywide database that helps law enforcement agencies track and document vandalism.

The database is designed to help law enforcement agencies identify individual graffiti artists from their distinctive designs, in hopes of catching them and holding them accountable for the damage.

Newport Beach tries to clean up all reported graffiti within 24 hours.

The city makes cleaning up obscene graffiti a top priority and typically will send workers out immediately to clean up any particularly lewd artwork, Harmon said.

“We’re proud of the program because we get it cleaned up so quickly that most people will never see it,” Harmon said. “Most visitors and residents here will boast we don’t have a graffiti problem here, and that’s the way we like it.”

How To Report Graffiti In Newport Beach

The city maintains a graffiti hotline, (949) 644-3333.

Residents also can call the Newport Beach Police Department at (949) 644-3681.