Code of the graffiti vandals broken — murals being targeted

NEWS — There’s a new kind of graffiti vandalism going on.

Was a time that graffiti vandals had a code of honour about other’s art work that meant it wasn’t cool to tag a wall if it had a mural on it. That’s changing, says Graffiti Task Force manager Ronnie Bouvier.

“The new thing at the end of the year was mural damage,” Bouvier said today, adding the task force has already been busy this year doing temporary cover-ups of graffiti on warmer days and, in some cases, doing repairs to murals. The patches will be redone as spring weather makes painting and cleaning easier, she said.

She said murals all over town have been hit. The Juniper mural has been “ruined,” and North Shore murals have been damaged and repaired but merchants there are become frustrated. Prince Charles Park and McArthur Island murals have also been hit with tagging.

“It’s not graffiti, it’s vandalism,” she said.

Along with murals, non-mural walls continue to be tagged. She noted that one of the brick walls of the Universal Reproductions building has been badly tagged and the company will clean it up.

Bouvier said the good news is the amount of graffiti vandalized property overall declined from the previous year. “So we’ll just keep educating.”