Sometimes citywide problems supercede community problems. This writer has noticed over the past few years that this particular building @ Lawrence & Washtenaw has been getting tagging over and over. Today the worst tag yet.
Speaking with the owner he is obviously frustrated. He has heard of a graffiti crew coming around doing giant tags like this, strutting and posing for photographs. You can see by the large picture that this building has been hit many times over the years and the graffiti has never been completely removed. This kind of problem isn't a neighborhood problem or a community problem, its a citywide problem. Taggers brag about going citywide with their tags. When is the city of Chicago going to get serious about graffiti crime and get a graffiti tracker program? If there are graffiti crews going about causing felony levels of damage, why is there not a graffiti task force working together to bring these criminals to justice? Stealing 500 dollars worth of goods is a felony, is not doing 500 dollars or more of vandalism also not a felony? It is according to Illinois law if the damage is over three hundred dollars worth of damage.
A nice condo/apartment building is just across the street from this restaurant, Lincoln Square is a stone's throw from this building. This is walking distance to the Brown Line. In general it is a much improving neighborhood and is part of the Ravenswood Manor area. This kind of graffiti can happen anywhere in the city and it does. Getting a graffiti tracker program would allow law enforcement to locate the small handful of culprits that are doing the lion share of tagging. This writer notices year after year the same taggers are still out there tagging and they are facing no consequences whatsoever, so why would they ever stop tagging? They won't until they are captured and jail time and monetary damages meted out.
The tag appears to have been rolled onto the side of the building, there are drips noticeable on the brick and on the sidewalk. Tags continue throughout the winter, there is no respite from graffiti in our fair city.
The tag appears to have been rolled onto the side of the building, there are drips noticeable on the brick and on the sidewalk. Tags continue throughout the winter, there is no respite from graffiti in our fair city.
The charge you face will be a Class 4 felony if the damage is more than $300 but less than $10,000, or if the damage is committed against a school, place of worship, or to farm equipment and is valued at less than $300. A Class 4 felony can carry up to 1 to 3 years in prison and $25,000 in fines."
5 comments:
There's graffiti and there's grafitti. Sometimes it's actually interesting and improves some ugly blank wall. This one is just dimwitted and untalented. I suppose the sledgehammer of the law can't distinguish between the two, but it would be nice if it could somehow prioritize total crap like this.
Yes, there are different types of graffiti and London is able to make judgments between boring repetitive ugly tagging and street art.
There are also high level graffiti offenders doing a large portion of the tagging that need to be identified and dealt with
There's a mindcrusher tattoo sticker on the Howard bound platform at Loyola, it matches the shade of the sign so perfectly it had to be deliberate made for that location. I tried to scrape it off on two separate occasions but it won't budge.
@ DUI, wait until it gets warm out, really warm, it should be easier to get off then.
Those Mindcrusher stickers I have found to be tougher to get off in the cold, and even though its warm now, I dont think it has had time to thaw.
I figure its better to wait for spring. There are other different vandalisms I work on in the meantime. I will be posting on those soon.
@ DUI, thanks for posting about the stickers. It won't do any good though, at least in getting the business on the sticker to help.
Using a putty knife helps,
I remember in the warm weather it was quite easy to get off. Maybe today it will come off.
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