The Nuisance of Graffiti & Tagging by Kakapo2
Nothing upsets the people of Christchurch more than graffiti, also called tagging. You can read letters to the editor about it in the Press on a nearly daily basis. And wherever you look in the city centre you will spot spraypainted walls, fences, power boxes, and street signs. Just a week or two ago some people of Christchurch?s most affluent suburb of Fendalton were surprised that a tagger had sprayed their fences, and wondered how the taggers dare to not respect their million dollar homes LOL As if only poorer people were allowed to become victims of crime!There are endless discussions about selling spraycans only to people who are willing to get registered, like buying drugs in the pharmacies.
Perhaps the discussion would not be so fierce, were the graffiti artistic and spectacular. But unfortunately Christchurch seems to only have untalented sprayers who are not interested in anything but damaging other people?s properties, and public places. Many tags are not even readable. So which sense does tagging make if there is no message in it?
It costs Christchurch more than NZ$ 1 million per year to get rid of the graffiti ? and just days after the clean-ups new graffiti appear on the walls and fences. Senseless lives, like those of the car hoons.
As taggers want their work of destruction be displayed I restrain from posting a photo of it. Instead see another kind of destruction that happens in the city on a regular base. And LOL ? Some taggers are silly enough to post their graffiti on the internet, and they can be recognised easily, so the police can investigate and charge them.
Update 29 Jan 2008
Isn't it crazy that just the other day a 50 year-old business man in Manukau City stabbed a tagger to death? I do not excuse this, of course not - but it shows how fed up the people are with tagging.