Seattle Police aren’t busting taggers. The City Attorney is asking for a new tool to crack down on the likes of WESH and DOTCOM without cops including a $1,000 fine “per illegal graffiti violation.”
The Seattle City Council’s public safety committee is taking up the debate Tuesday morning on the proposed legislation from City Attorney Ann Davison and committee chair Bob Kettle that would allow Davison’s office to pursue civil penalties against vandals, taggers, and graffiti artists.
“Many illegal graffiti taggers are known to police and promote themselves on social media but it can be difficult to hold them accountable through the criminal justice system,” the City Attorney’s office presentation on the proposed legislation reads. “The Illegal Graffiti Restitution legislation would provide the City Attorney with new authority to bring civil actions against the most prolific illegal graffiti taggers in circumstances where criminal charges might not be possible.”
According to officials, the city spends $6 million a year “cleaning up graffiti.” Across some 28,816 instances of “reported vandalism” in 2024, only 35 were referred for misdemeanor prosecution.
Officials point out the average tagger prosecuted in Seattle have been white males
Under the proposed legislation, the city says it would be able to pursue civil cases against documented vandals — especially those who “post their work on Instagram and other social media sites.” The City Attorney’s Office says it would prioritize “bringing actions against the most prolific illegal graffiti taggers and crews – individuals responsible for tens of thousands of dollars in property destruction.”
Taggers could also be pursued “for restitution of labor and material costs incurred to remove illegal graffiti.”
“Graffiti taggers would not be subject to these provisions if the tagger obtained the express permission of a private property owner prior to applying the graffiti,” the city says.
Any monetary damages and restitution could be “converted to community service doing graffiti abatement work.”
The proposal comes as Mayor Bruce Harrell’s crackdown on graffiti has continued as an issue that was important to the longtime city official even in his days on the city council. Last year, the county touted its pursuit of multiple felony cases against some of the area’s most prolific taggers.
Elsewhere, meanwhile, officials are making efforts hoped to be more effective than legal crackdowns including this graffiti-friendly art program (and a pressure washing contract) at Capitol Hill Station.
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It’s about time. Although graffiti is a way of life in cities it’s exponentially higher here than other cities or areas. It’s just a free for all because there’s no enforcement or penalty.
Also some cities restrict sales or access to spray paint but god forbid they do that.
How about anyone caught is fined $1,000 but the fine needs to be worked off by pressure washing or painting over graffiti. Reap what you sow!
Why do people like boring GRAY. Stop caring about tagging and murals. They’re cool
They’re not cool they’re tacky. Few cool murals here and there but mostly just weird names like some influencer wall
Tagging is neither a mural nor art…. It’s pissing on a wall to mark your spot…
Thank you Ann Davison and Bob Kettle! This is much-needed legislation and it will make a difference in the epidemic of graffiti vandalism.
When you see those two championing it, you know it’ll be just as effective as their legislation to exile people.
Okay, stickergeddon it is then.
Seattle added fines for racing cars, too. But until police will/can act on various crimes, nothing will happen. The list of priorities that determine if police are dispatched has nothing to do with the fine. If more were arrested and even given a smaller fine, THAT would impact things. Police are not responding to most misdemeanors and many felonies.
We can also look at spray paint. We can raise the age to purchase to 21. Record the amount and colors purchased to be entered in a database. Require purchasers to return the cans, or they will be prevented from future purchases. Maybe we require a reformulation of paint to make it removed more easily, or to contain micro-particles that could be used to trace the paint. I know these may not be perfect, or have legal issues. But let’s use this sort of creativity to help reduce the
grafeetee grafitti graphiti graffitti grafitigraffiti* problem.*painting
Yeah I hear you. Hopefully police staffing can help. Beyond that, because the new graffiti charges are civil the burden of proof is much lower and apparently the city attorney already has 10+ cases lined up based on Instagram posts. Fuzzy on the count but it was reported in the seattle times. The upshot is that it should be possible develop cases without law enforcement.