Edmonton’s Anti-Graffiti Laws are Ridiculous
City Council has decided that ticketing property owners who have been the vicitims of vandalism is a good idea. Because, you know, fining the vicitms of crime makes perfect sense. Maybe the federal government should adopt this approach, and fine the families of murder victims.
Obviously, I’m going to the extremes of hyperbole here, but you get my point.
I have a number of issues with this new bylaw, including questions about how do we define art vs vandalism. Is all graffiti inherently ugly? Is it all vandalism? What if I, as a property owner, like the graffiti that has been sprayed on my property? If I consider it to be art and decide that I don’t want to remove it, shouldn’t I have that right? It is my property, after all.
Then, there is the issue that I mentioned at the beginning of this post: that this program punishes the victim. There is a story in the Edmonton Sun today about a 77-year-old woman who is facing a $250 fine because she hasn’t removed graffiti from her garage.
Good job, City Hall, charging a senior citizen for being unable to clean up damage to her property that she did not cause (it should be noted that she did attempt to clean it up, but was unable to get the paint off of her stucco).
The politics surrounding graffiti have always been a bit grey. Questions about what is art, about whether graffiti harms a city’s streets or makes them more vibrant, and about who should be responsible for cleaning it up have never been easy to answer.
These are not easy questions, but the City of Edmonton has certainly choosen the wrong answers.
I like the new design, but not sure I like that the entire post appears in CAPS.
I agree with you about the laws too.
Mack D. Male
24 Jul 08 at 9:41 am
As far as the new design goes, I agree with you, Mack. I’m not fond of the all CAPS thing, either, and I plan to change the font, or at least the CAPS thing, soon.
I also plan to change the colour of the text in the left side-bar so that it’s more readable.
Adam Snider
24 Jul 08 at 9:48 am
Very cool design. I agree, all caps has to go. Love the bg image, though.
Mike Gravel
31 Jul 08 at 9:59 am
Yeah, it’ll be gone as soon as I have time to sit down and go through the code. The CSS is written a little bit differently than I’m used to seeing, so I’ll have to play around with it a bit.
It’s just a matter of finding the time to do it.
Hopefully, within a week, I’ll have hacked the design and I’ll be back to regular publishing.
Adam Snider
31 Jul 08 at 10:49 am
I can’t believe the “listen” bird on High Level bridge is gone. I just noticed that recently. It was featured in Alberta Views magazine - for me it was art. If the city treats all graffiti alike, we will lose some unique sights in this barren city.
Trudy
24 Sep 08 at 7:37 pm
That’s going too far. They day they go after the Listen bird is the day they go after the very heart of the city.
Adam Snider
24 Sep 08 at 8:09 pm
I agree and disagree with the laws, their concept on how to fight graffiti is to paint over as soon as its up. Therefore if businesses ignore it then they get fined, easy way to save in the long run if your in a hotspot. Buy a camera, paint it over.
ej
3 Dec 08 at 3:53 pm