For small business owners, police officers, social workers and graffiti artists to agree on anything is a remarkable occasion. The still more unlikely event that municipal politicians agree with these other groups and each other simply confounds the normal operating logic at City Hall. But that’s what happened this week when the city’s Licensing and Standards considered a new policy for managing graffiti and street art in Toronto.
The committee approved a plan that clearly separates vandalism — especially tagging, the act of placing stylized versions of the taggers’ names over every available surface — from murals and other forms of street art. The city modeled the plan on a similar scheme that has worked successfully in Philadephia.
From the point of view of small businesses, removing graffiti from storefronts and walls costs merchants hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Property owners say graffiti victimizes them twice — even though they often don’t choose the art that appears on their property, current enforcement policy requires them to pay to remove it.
At a recent event previewing the policy, West Queen West business owner Djana Gajdel expressed the frustrations that small entrepreneurs feel about graffiti: “Many of the businesses along our retail strip are deeply involved with the arts community. As such, though, we need to reserve the right to maintain the appearance of our premises as we designed them. No one has the right to impose their art on us, or anyone else.”
At the same time, graffiti artists create some of the most compelling and vivid art in the city. Zion, a leading artist, spoke at the same event about the efforts of other cities, such as Barcelona, to promote their distinct local graffiti murals as tourist attractions. He encouraged the city to continue to fight against the work of taggers, while encouraging creative young people to develop their talents in special zones where the city allows artists to display their street art.
Zion compared what’s happening with kids who create graffiti to what happened to kids who skateboarded, “where teenage angst would have a crew of skateboarders downtown in the financial district looking for a smooth surface to grind. The first response was to block the smooth surface. That helped accelerate the culture… and that pushed it to bigger and better tricks… Now we have skate parks that have handrails and ledges. Now you’re hard-pressed to find skateboarders down in the financial district, because they have something to do.”
The new policy sets out rules for city staff and police to rigorously enforce against tagging and other illegal graffiti, while also supporting and recognizing the legitimacy of graffiti and other street art, where the city and property owners have permitted the activity.
On the enforcement side, the policy revises the definitions of street art and vandalism, and applies standards for graffiti removal while giving property owners more tools for getting rid of the unwanted staff. Meanwhile, it also recognizes graffiti art on buildings where the owner has approved the work and the art meets “community standards”, and increase opportunities for the public, young people and graffiti artists to develop their abilities and to showcase their work.
It’s expected that city council will approve the new policy during its meetings on July 12 and 13.
