By Erica C. Barnett
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.
To state the obvious, it’s unlikely that most taggers—who aren’t generally pulling six-figure salaries—will be able to pay thousands of dollars in fines. (While state law caps the potential fine for graffiti at $5,000, the potential fines under Kettle’s legislation are unlimited.) The legislation includes an option for people to work off their fines by doing graffiti abatement for the city, but also notes that any unpaid fines or restitution will go to a collection agency, meaning that people fined for graffiti in Seattle could end up in a crushing cycle of debt.
According to a staff memo on Kettle’s bill, the city attorney’s office believes it can fold graffiti enforcement into its existing work without adding more attorneys.
There are a thousand more important issues. Graffiti is art, and very nearly the only public art on Seattle’s streets.
Doug,
Perhaps daycare should take away your crayons, until you can show a modicum of respect for your neighbors.
I don’t know any graffiti artists, and I’m not sure how many have actually been charged under these ever more draconian laws. But I do have an acquaintance who lives down in South Park, and his house sits on a corner which has a fence that gets tagged a lot. He seems pretty mad about it, but the thing is he keeps getting harassed by the city about it. They keep telling him to cover up the graffiti or else the city will start fining him.
So now they are making the graffiti laws even harsher, what happens to the poorer citizens of Seattle who have done nothing wrong, yet have to bear the burden of graffiti cleanup under the threat of the city bringing the hammer down?
One gets the impression the “moderates” give no f**ks if their heavy handed law preferences bear down not so much on criminals, but like an anvil on poor residents. After all, who cares who needs to bear the force of law when what’s most important is making sure the eyes of the pure don’t fall on any impurity, such as graffiti, when you are commuting to work? Huh?
I am so tired of seeing graffiti in the Mercer Street Tunnel. Every convicted “artist” should work a midnight to 6AM shift in pouring down rain, cleaning their work and the work of their friends off the walls and buildings of Seattle.
Sunnyside Up
> It’s already a crime.
From council staff: https://seattle.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=14271866&GUID=C41D527F-0D96-4D0F-8F81-E53E0FD33577
As noted above, the CAO has indicated that it has had limited success enforcing misdemeanor
graffiti crimes at the Seattle Municipal Court. CAO prosecutors have found that, **unless the
defendant was caught in the act**, criminal graffiti cases are difficult to prove beyond the
reasonable doubt standard. Consequently, the CAO is **unable to prove guilt even when
prosecutors have identified known graffiti taggers**, images of their graffiti tag (signature) on
Instagram, and can show that the act occurred after a recently documented abatement. **CAO
staff believe that such cases would be more viable under the civil preponderance of the
evidence standard, which for practical purposes, means “more likely than not,” or that there is
a greater than 50 percent likelihood.**
So the current misdemeanor law is not working and has too high of a standard to win conviction and charges often aren’t pressed. If someone is documenting their tagging on Instagram, yes, I think they should be held accountable.
Good. There’s a pretty simple solution to avoid the potential financial ruin that comes from repeatedly breaking the law. People can work off their debt if they’d prefer or need to. Both the fine & abatement are a way for a tagger to realize the cost they put on society to clean up their tags.
Maybe the person is irresponsible and won’t pay and won’t do abatement. Hard to feel too sorry for them. Not really a matter of bad luck.
Don’t break the law, or don’t get caught.
GOOD!!!
Maybe when someone tags my possessions I will understand the outrage. Such a non-issue. When our state elected officials are responding to housing affordability, congestion, and climate change, Seattle city council is further criminalizing the already outlawed street racing, prostitution, drug dealing, and graffiti. Who are we if these banal knuckleheads are our leaders?
A crushing amount of debt sounds appropriate for these low-lifes. Let’s do it!
It’s already illegal, so now it’d be double-extra illegal?
Cool, cool, cool.
What a waste of time. It’s not like Our Retired Naval Officer Who Knows Things is up for re-election this year. It must be a lazy assist for his chum, Ann.
Regardless of politics, I appreciate the fact Bob served our country. If you also have, I thank you, as well.
Totally in favor. The tagger consequences can be structured as a significant escalating schedule of graffiti cleanup. Perhaps make it sting more by requiring they remove their own first
Sick to death of looking at that “stuff” all over the place, every inch of available space. I don’t see it as anything but garbage.
When I see graffiti, I immediately think of it as analog for dogs peeing on fire hydrants. Doesn’t inspire respect in me; quite the opposite.
Making cleanup the consequence for tagging, if there’s appropriate and sustained attention and enforcement, removes the issue of non-payment and collection debts and requires time and effort that couldn’t be spent adding to the filth.
Could someone just erase bob please?