City Councilmember Bob Kettle, who chairs the council’s public safety committee, is sponsoring a new anti-graffiti bill that would establish a civil penalty of $1,000 for every “graffiti violation,” defined in the proposal as “a single piece of graffiti, including but not limited to a graffiti tagger name or design, in a single location.” The new penalty would apply not just to taggers but to anyone “who assists or encourages another person or entity” to draw, write, or paint on public or private property; the city attorney would have three years to pursue penalties against anyone accused of violating the ordinance.
Graffiti is already a gross misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $5,000 and up to a year in jail, so Kettle’s proposal represents an expansion of the city’s authority to crack down on something that is already criminalized. The strategy is similar to the local drug criminalization law the council passed at the behest of City Attorney Ann Davison in 2023, which doubled down on existing state law by empowering Davison’s office to prosecute people for simple possession and outdoor drug use.
We reached out to Kettle to find out why he’s sponsoring the bill, but did not hear back…