If You Buy Spray Paint In LA You Are Required To Register With Police File?!

If a lawmaker has his way, this would become law.

So silly. You can never stop graffiti. You can't stop getting up!



L.A. Councilman Dennis Zine is proposing a motion that would require stores to get and keep a person's name and address if they buy spray cans and "graffiti paraphernalia" such as "spray paint nozzles, paint pens, glass cutting, and etching tools."

Zine is basing this motion on the City of Portland, which Zine says, has a similar system in place.

Wonder if Portland doesn't have any graffiti on its streets . . .

Eh, its hard to be sarcastic online. We know for a fact that Portland has a vibrant and thriving street art and graffiti scene. Portland did distinguish itself recently as the place where the local police strong armed a local landlord and intimidated them into canceling a lease to a group that was hosting graffiti and street art themed art shows. It was a pretty scary example of police using thuggish tactics to accomplish their goal.

The silly thing is that it doesn't work--you can never stop graffiti. Even if the city stationed a cop on every single street corner in the city, artists would still get up. A prime example of how you can't stop graffiti and artists from getting up was the MOCA 'Art In the Streets' exhibit. MOCA had security guards stationed about every 8 feet. There was literally a guard, or two, monitoring every little nook and cranny of the exhibit -- and the place was still swarmed with illicit art. Like everywhere, including the pic above shot in front of Barry McGee's installation at MOCA with illicit stickers and tags from Erie, Remio and Bankrupt Slut. Some spots had been smashed so hard, and buffed, and hit again and scraped clean, and hit again, and so on that it looked like a busy spot out on the street. It was crazy.

This is not a challenge, its just a fact. You will never stop people getting up. You can put an officer on every block of the city. The city could outlaw spray paint entirely and make it illegal. You could even make it a capital crime, and folks would still get up.

The funny thing is, cops and the city officials like Mr. Zine don't seem to realize that the harder they try to clamp down on graffiti and street art, the more hyped and the more glamourous it becomes. Just this week, LA TACO is reporting how an LA artist was trying, unsuccessfully, to sell some paintings for $900. The paintings featured banks being set on fire so the LAPD paid the artist a visit to see if he was an anarchist. After the event was publicized, the painting sold for $25,200.

LA Weekly has published a good write up on Mr. Zine's motion including a response from the ACLU. The ACLU states that a motion like this would never survive because 'anyone buying the product would be singled out as a suspect'. And that violates 1st Amendment rights.

Its too bad that this motion has even been made. It would be much better if City Officials tried a more proactive approach, like steering busted graffiti vandals into art programs. This has been implemented in NY with nearly 90% of the participants avoiding jail for vandalism ever again.

Be careful. And stay up~