Montrose writes new anti-graffiti ordinance

Montrose writes new anti-graffiti ordinance: "Montrose writes new anti-graffiti ordinance

By BEVERLY CORBELL The Daily Sentinel

Wednesday, November 29, 2006
MONTROSE — Montrose is fed up with an upsurge in graffiti in the past year so the town council recently passed an ordinance to make penalties stiffer.
Mayor Noelle Hagan said the new laws are “just another tool in the tool box” to combat graffiti that include a graffiti task force that’s been meeting for about the past six months.
“Some of the strategies reviewed by the task force were what other communities were doing,” she said. “We wanted to pass an ordinance but we had to deliberate.”
During one of those deliberations, the task force decided against requiring property owners to remove graffiti because they are the victims.
Instead, the ordinance states that if caught, graffiti vandals must clean it up themselves within 24 hours.
The eight-page ordinance states that anyone convicted of graffiti vandalism will be fined from $250 to $1,000 and could serve up to a year in the city jail. Parents or guardians of minors who break anti-graffiti laws will be held accountable for fines and if they don’t pay up their property could be seized.
Up to 20 hours of community service can also be a requirement set by the courts for those convicted of creating graffiti and their parents have to go along for half of that time.
The ordinance also allows for a reward system for tips on graffiti vandals and reimbursement of expenses. The rewards will be funded by an “anti-graffiti account” that will be set up with collected fines from graffiti violations.
But whether the new laws will be a deterrent is hard to say, Hagan said.
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