On Sunday morning the residents of a street in Noraville on the Central Coast awoke to find that vandals had committed a Graffiti attack on their homes and cars. The entire street was a mess of brightly sprayed tags on walls and windows and every car was covered with the product of street artists. The damage bill for removal will run to a staggering amount.
The police were called and there have been some arrests, but the fact remains that an entire street has been defaced in a brazen night attack. There had been an out of control party in a nearby neighbourhood and it is likely that when this was closed down drunken teenagers went on their Graffiti rampage to "let off steam "!
Graffiti is a nuisance that affects just about every citizen sometime in their lives. It is a rare person that escapes a "Tag "suddenly appearing on their letterbox or front fence. The streetscape in most suburbs contains Graffiti pollution and criminal gangs make raids onto railway property to adorn entire trains with their "art ". The cost to the public purse for it's removal runs to millions.
No doubt the residents on the Central Coast will make their complaints heard in state parliament and once again the politicians will promise to make spray cans harder to obtain, but this whole issue of Graffiti depends entirely on spray canned paint to be possible. We really need to think whether this portable means of delivering a coat of paint should be totally banned in this country.
Basically, paint in a tin under pressure is mainly a hobby tool. It has a commercial use as a "touch up " remedy in the car and whitegoods industries, but it can also be replicated by the use of cheap electrical sprayers - but these have the advantage of needing electricity connected - and are therefore not portable.
If we are to slay the Graffiti dragon imposing a ban on canned paint spray would need to be on a national basis. We would need to heed the example of state bans on fireworks which exist in some states, but are overcome when supplies move easily between state borders from fireworks warehouses carefully situated to exploit that loophole.
It would seem to be a matter of a small commercial inconvenience for genuine users of paint sprays who would need to invest in electrical spray equipment, balanced against the millions government entities and councils spend removing Graffiti from public property, plus the daily battle waged by shops and other business premises to keep their shopfronts neat and respectable.
If the Federal parliament imposed a national ban on paint in spray cans it would naturally become a banned import and it would be illegal for it to be offered for sale anywhere in Australia. This ban would need to be rigidly enforced - and attract a hefty penalty for breaches.
Graffiti delivered by the use of marker pens would still be possible, but without the speed and capacity of spray cans, and that raises another question that must be running through the heads of those owners of twenty-five homes and the fifteen cars on the Central Coast who spent their Sunday trying to remove that offensive material.
The paint industry extensively advertises the ability of the paint they manufacture to be wiped clean of all sorts of contaminants - from wet and muddy dogs shaking their fur - to kids at a birthday party throwing food. It seems that the world is crying out for a clear paint product that will simply protect whatever surface on which it is sprayed - from Graffiti !
Perhaps the answer to the Graffiti question is twofold. A ban on spray cans - and incentive for the paint industry to create a new product !
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