Oxnard Council OKs Changes in Anti-Graffiti Law

Despite a flurry of 11th-hour protests, the Oxnard City Council gave final approval Tuesday to tough new measures requiring property owners to promptly erase graffiti or face criminal penalties.

Under the amendments to the city’s anti-graffiti ordinance, property owners can be fined up to $500 for failing to remove graffiti after being ordered to do so by city officials.

Half a dozen property owners urged the council to strike that provision from the city law.

“Don’t take it out on the taxpayers,” 75-year-old Inez Brown told council members. “Common sense will tell you I’m not supposed to pay for somebody else’s dirty work.”

Added businessman Alvin Aggen: “You are destroying property values. You are destroying everything that is good for business in Oxnard.”

But council members, who unanimously adopted the new measures without comment, said after the meeting that aggressive action is needed to slow the spread of graffiti, an inner-city plague that robs the Oxnard treasury of $600,000 a year.

The fines could help the city recoup the costs of removing graffiti. But council members said the last thing they want to do is penalize property owners victimized by graffiti.

“It’s primarily designed to get the attention of people who ignore our pleas to cooperate,” Councilman Michael Plisky said of the new measures. “If this thing becomes even slightly abusive, I will immediately bring it back for reconsideration.”

Added Mayor Manuel Lopez: “The last thing we want to do is punish the victims.”

Oxnard joins other Ventura County cities that in recent years have adopted tough anti-graffiti laws.

From Thousand Oaks to Moorpark to Ventura, city officials have adopted ordinances requiring merchants to lock up spray paint, markers and other tools used by graffiti artists.

In Simi Valley, a law adopted earlier this year holds parents liable for up to $10,000 in damages and fines resulting from their children’s vandalism.

The Camarillo City Council last year adopted a law that enables the city to hold parents liable and allows the city manager to give property owners 48 hours to remove graffiti or pay the city for its removal.

The amendments approved Tuesday in Oxnard broaden the scope of the city’s anti-graffiti regulations and clarify some of the rules.

Under the amended ordinance, adults and minors are prohibited from possessing in public places objects that could be used for graffiti. In addition, the law prohibits the sale of spray paint and other graffiti paraphernalia to minors without an adult being present.

But it was the provision of the law that allowed property owners to be fined if they failed to promptly erase graffiti that drew criticism.

Under that provision, the city manager can order the removal of graffiti from private property. At that point, a property owner would have 10 days to erase the blight. If the property owner fails to do so, he can be fined $100 for the first offense, $200 for the second and $500 for each subsequent violation.

The city supplies rollers and buckets of paint to property owners who wish to erase graffiti themselves. The city will also remove the scrawl from homes and businesses and charge according to the amount of damage.

After the council approved the first reading of the ordinance two weeks ago, residents began to complain.

“Get up from your full-time jobs, look around and see what needs to be done,” resident Jean Joneson told council members Tuesday. “This garbage here, what you’re doing is uncalled-for.”

But other residents told the council that they support the tough measures.

“This ordinance will give the City Council the kind of leverage they need to go after these vandals,” said John Branthoover, who heads a community patrol in Oxnard’s Rio Lindo neighborhood.