The city will begin taking phone calls for graffiti cleanup Monday. GAPIT will stop abatement next weekend, and Garza hopes to have a new contractor by August. In the meantime, two painting contractors working with the city already will fill the gaps.
''I worry about what the city is going to look like,'' GAPIT's Phillips said. ''This is going to be a hard transition.''
According to GAPIT, graffiti incidents here have increased by 21 percent over the past two years, and more than 1 in every 3 locations tagged was a residential home.
On the East Side near 22nd Street and Camino Seco, Jack and Linda Riell have seen more and more paint on the walls and signs near their home over the past few years. Police have told them that it may be the result of gang activity in a nearby apartment complex.
''We never used to have the gang graffiti all over the place,'' Linda Riell said. ''They're tagging everything. This is new. It's a change in the neighborhood.''
Summer months are particularly popular for taggers and graffiti artists, partially because school is out, but also because aerosol cans work better in warm weather, Phillips said.
''We have really good weather all year round for graffiti,'' Phillips said. ''Graffiti is the newspaper of the street, so when you have a political event worldwide, you are going to feel it. It's more than just vandalism. I've always felt graffiti was the first line in juvenile violence.''
Gangs from the South and West sides will spray their marks in East Side washes, and gangs there will retaliate by visiting other parts of town. This can escalate into violence, which is why GAPIT tries to clean up graffiti quickly.
Garza agreed with this assessment, though he said gang-related markings are a small percentage of all the graffiti in Tucson.
''I think when people see graffiti, most people, the common man interprets it as a problem with the community that can get worse and spread to other problems if not corrected,'' he said.
The new city policy will see an education effort in the classroom to help stop graffiti before they begin and city inspectors in stores to ensure that spray cans are locked up or in view of the cashier to prevent sale to minors or theft, Garza said. The program will be based on a pilot project carried out on the East Side that was structured after similar efforts in Phoenix, Riverside County in California and Fort Worth in Texas.
The task forces for graffiti abatement, education and code enforcement will begin meeting in July, Garza said.
''We can't have a program where you just abate it,'' he said. ''It's going to be a much more holistic approach.''
Graffiti tags in Tucson
37,980
Number of hours spent cleaning graffiti
21,911
Total square footage cleaned
1.97M
''I worry about what the city is going to look like,'' GAPIT's Phillips said. ''This is going to be a hard transition.''
According to GAPIT, graffiti incidents here have increased by 21 percent over the past two years, and more than 1 in every 3 locations tagged was a residential home.
On the East Side near 22nd Street and Camino Seco, Jack and Linda Riell have seen more and more paint on the walls and signs near their home over the past few years. Police have told them that it may be the result of gang activity in a nearby apartment complex.
''We never used to have the gang graffiti all over the place,'' Linda Riell said. ''They're tagging everything. This is new. It's a change in the neighborhood.''
Summer months are particularly popular for taggers and graffiti artists, partially because school is out, but also because aerosol cans work better in warm weather, Phillips said.
''We have really good weather all year round for graffiti,'' Phillips said. ''Graffiti is the newspaper of the street, so when you have a political event worldwide, you are going to feel it. It's more than just vandalism. I've always felt graffiti was the first line in juvenile violence.''
Gangs from the South and West sides will spray their marks in East Side washes, and gangs there will retaliate by visiting other parts of town. This can escalate into violence, which is why GAPIT tries to clean up graffiti quickly.
Garza agreed with this assessment, though he said gang-related markings are a small percentage of all the graffiti in Tucson.
''I think when people see graffiti, most people, the common man interprets it as a problem with the community that can get worse and spread to other problems if not corrected,'' he said.
The new city policy will see an education effort in the classroom to help stop graffiti before they begin and city inspectors in stores to ensure that spray cans are locked up or in view of the cashier to prevent sale to minors or theft, Garza said. The program will be based on a pilot project carried out on the East Side that was structured after similar efforts in Phoenix, Riverside County in California and Fort Worth in Texas.
The task forces for graffiti abatement, education and code enforcement will begin meeting in July, Garza said.
''We can't have a program where you just abate it,'' he said. ''It's going to be a much more holistic approach.''
Graffiti tags in Tucson
37,980
Number of hours spent cleaning graffiti
21,911
Total square footage cleaned
1.97M
