Graffiti is, of course, all about high visibility, with its practitioners often trying to stand out from the crowd — think: Three abandoned 30-story towers in downtown L.A. Even so, there have been some very eye-popping reminders recently of what is officially called "obnoxious" criminal activity around San Diego, including on some high-profile structures, and it appears little is being done about it.
In Mission Valley, the former Scottish Rite Center opposite the Mission Valley Mall, had, for months, massive tags adorning its front, with a large amount of additional graffiti splashed along its side as well. Trolley riders traveling from Santa Fe Depot to Old Town have been treated to a visual salad on the backsides of dozens, possibly hundreds of buildings, for more than a year, despite some efforts to eradicate it. On the way to the airport and waiting for the light at Pacific Coast Highway and Laurel, giant tags can be seen scrawled on the front of a large building.
Walking on the strand below Torrey Pines, beachgoers' eyes are assaulted by a six-foot seawall protecting the famous "Mushroom House" that has been covered with Technicolor spray paint applied by what seems like dozens of vandals. In Mission Hills, the Ibis Market, which seems to be between owners, has had its second-story prow tagged on both sides; it seems unlikely to be covered any time soon while it, presumably, languishes in real-estate limbo. And out on the Ocean Beach Pier just in time for the 4th of July, the red, white and blue sign on the side that has announced the presence of the café for decades was covered up by a tagger and now says “Hola,” joined on the building's front by other large graffiti.
The spray-painters in all these cases seem to show a sophistication in choosing their targets, with a propensity for selecting spaces with staying power where their trophies will be on view for extended periods, thanks to absentee owners or isolation. The work of at least one of the taggers has popped up at multiple locations.
The incidents on some of San Diego's most recognizable structures seem tailor-made for the city's ordinance against graffiti, however: "The city finds and determines that graffiti is obnoxious and constitutes both a public nuisance and a crime, and that it must be abated to avoid the detrimental impact of such graffiti on the city and its residents and prevent the further spread of graffiti."
While reports of graffiti made to San Diego's Get It Done app seem to be down year-over-year, the locations it has popped up in have spotlighted the problem. During one week in June, there were complaints about graffiti on 19 private property locations and 160 examples sprayed on public property. During the same period two years ago, 37 cases connected to private property were reported while there were 228 incidents on public property.
When graffiti is reported on public property, city, county or crews from CalTrans and other entities are often dispatched to address the problem, and the city posts photos on the Get It Done app updating those mitigation efforts. None of the private properties listed above, however, have been reported on Get It Done in the past three months. [ Correction: Despite having searched for all the reports of graffiti on private property during that period, the Get It Done app's Web search page did not return a report on the Mushroom House that was filed on May 12 by a reader who brought it to our attention on Monday night. That report is still listed as New and In Process. NBC 7 has contacted the city to inquire about the status of that report — Ed.]
What are the legal responsibilities of the property owner, and what happens if they ignore notification by authorities? A local ordinance states that it "is unlawful for any responsible person to maintain graffiti that has been placed upon, or to allow graffiti to remain upon, any surface within that person’s control, possession or ownership when the graffiti is visible from the street or other public property."
NBC 7 spoke with the San Diego City Attorney Mara Elliott, who confirmed that, even though they are the victims of criminal activity, it is the private property owner’s responsibility to cover up the obnoxious handiwork. That said, the city is more interested in working toward a solution and is sympathetic to the situation they’re in. Elliott said she thought that, in the wake of pandemic and more people working from home, there is greater awareness of these offenses to the eyes.
“I don't think it's a bigger problem [now] than it has been in years in the past, at least from my observation, and we're not getting more referrals from what I can tell than we have in the past,” Elliott said.
Elliott walked through the city’s response to a graffiti report filed directly instead of via Get It Done.
“So, the start of the process is to make a complaint to the Development Services Department,” Elliott said. “They have a division within them that is Building and Land Use Enforcement. It's called BLUE. And anybody can do that online. You can also call and make that referral because somebody has to go and verify that there is indeed graffiti, that it is something that is prohibited under law, not just somebody's art that somebody doesn't like.”
BLUE has discretion under the municipal code, Elliott said, but some property owners don’t comply.
“The department will verify it and try to administratively handle it, which makes sense in terms of resources,” Elliott said. “And sometimes people do accidentally violate the law. And as a city, we want to give them the opportunity to fix that violation. And if they don't fix that violation and it continues to be a problem for the neighborhood and BLUE, the department, is unable to resolve that administratively, they can make a referral to my office for potential prosecution.”
While critics may point out that there are other, bigger issues facing San Diego, the city attorney believes that graffiti deserves the attention of local law enforcement.
“… we prosecute low-level crimes in my office, but they're important crimes,” Elliott told NBC 7. “They're sometimes the gateway to greater crimes. And that's why we think it's so important to handle the situation effectively and to try to teach people about the system.”
If all else fails, the city has one other recourse: City crews or a contractor working for San Diego can enter private property to abate graffiti if it's visible from the "public streets, property or rights-of-way," according to the same ordinance.
“In the cases where we're not able to get that level of cooperation, the city has the right under our code and under the state law to do what's called abatement,” Elliott said. “And we can come in and clean up the property because, again, it all comes back to health and safety of the community — and then seek reimbursement from the property owner or manager, whomever may be at issue.”
But what if nobody reports it to the Get It Done app or San Diego’s Development Services Department?
Elliott said she did not believe any city department has any workers dedicated to spotting graffiti. That said, there are incidents where, she believes, city employees have spotted something and filed a report.
So, no report, no offense, no work — and there seems to be no record, according to the city attorney’s office, of anybody reporting any of the high-profile cases in San Diego mentioned earlier, including at the Mushroom House, whose actual moniker is the Bell Pavilion (named for its original owner — Sam Bell, an heir to the General Mills fortune who helped conceive the unique property, which was built in 1968).
According to the La Jolla Light, the spaceship-looking structure was first targeted by vandals two and a half years ago and may be a special case, since it sits on the beach. Removing the graffiti on the concrete structure would probably require sandblasting or some sort of chemical application, both of which would surely attract the attention of the California Coastal Commission. The paper reported last year that one altruistic San Diegan offered to get involved but, Adam Grofcsik told the paper, "I was told by the coastal commission that I would need a permit [outlining my process] to make sure nothing got discharged into the ocean."
The home is owned by local philanthropist Ralph "Buzz" Wooley, who, among other notable acts, helped to pay for the founding of the Voice of San Diego. In an email exchange with Wooley last month, the wealthy La Jollan explained he was currently in Idaho and unable to meet for an interview. Asked about the situation at the stricture. Wooley emailed, "You can see its current state. It’s been vandalized. Too early to know what to do with it."
There has been a significant change at one site in San Diego, though: NBC 7 contacted the corporate headquarters of Home Depot, which owns the former Scottish Rite Center site in Mission Valley, and was told that it planned “to begin demolition of that building very soon.” Shortly after receiving that response, workers at the site painted over the vast majority of the graffiti visible from the I-8. Then, just last week, the building itself was torn down.
Have you seen any large-scale graffiti in your neighborhood? Send a photo to Eric.Page@nbcuni.com —
This article originally stated that the old Scottish Rite Center was opposite the Fashion Valley Mall when, in fact, the center is across the I-8 from Mission Valley Mall. — Ed.
