| "Graffiti hurts everyone," reads the City of Calgary’s website. Just exactly how it’s hurting everyone is something that urban activist and ex-graffiti artist Ewan Mill hasn’t been able to figure out since he moved to Calgary from Eastern Canada last summer.
The city spends more than $6 million a year removing graffiti. Much of it is unsightly – names etched into bus seats, tags on signs or dumpsters and political slogans on public property. But in some cases, even when it’s done respectfully and tastefully, graffiti art is being suppressed.
Graffiti artists in Calgary can get slapped with a maximum $5,000 fine for painting on public or private property without permission. But recently the city has also been approaching private businesses that have allowed graffiti on their walls and asking them to remove it or face consequences. It’s this crackdown on graffiti of all kinds that has Mill fuming.
"I understand the headaches and the sorrow from illegal graffiti because it can be a huge expense to buff the walls and keep them clean," says Mill, who goes by the street alias The Jade Emperor. "But at least the (businesses) who take the time to organize walls and give people permission (to write) — why should they have this threat above their heads? They’re trying to raise the bar of art in the city, they’re not trying to lower it."
In the summer of 2004, the art-focused Soda lounge downtown was asked to remove graffiti or face a fine. Co-owner Shane Elliot says he decided to leave the graffiti up against the city’s will, but his dissidence didn’t last long.
"Somebody just came in and painted over (the wall)," says Elliot. "I was trying to make a stand. I said, ‘Listen. First and foremost, we’re an art gallery, and if we choose to let them lay paint on the walls, it’s entirely our prerogative.’ And we were told (by the city), ‘No, it’s not.’ The next thing we knew it was painted over."
City bylaws state property owners need to ensure that "graffiti placed on their premises is removed, painted over, or otherwise permanently blocked from public view."
Marcel Dubois, the Calgary Police Service’s graffiti intelligence co-ordinator, says that "only a handful" of businesses have taken a pro-graffiti stance.
"We’ve worked very well with those businesses. Some, we have allowed the mural to happen, and some we’ve asked that they reconsider."
Dubois says the city decides on a case-by-case business whether or not to allow graffiti, depending on location and what the graffiti is. When the city sends out a subcontractor to paint over a wall they deem unsightly, the bill for the cleanup – anywhere from $100 to more than $500 – gets tacked onto the business’s next tax roll. The business can also get fined $150 for non-compliance with the city’s instructions.
Mill says the city is contradicting itself because it defines graffiti as something that is done without consent, but consenting businesses are facing fines for art on their walls.
"When they’re approaching private landowners who have already provided permission for these artists to paint, it’s no longer graffiti by the city’s own definition," says Mill. "It’s a bonafide form of art…. So why do they have the right to go around to businesses and threaten them with a fine to remove these graffiti productions from the side of their buildings when they were permitted?"
Ironically, Soda is now part of Urban Youth Worx, the city’s program to give graffiti artists a city-sanctioned opportunity to do their work on approved walls of interested businesses.
Mill says the city’s attempt to control and strictly regulate graffiti culture will only be counterproductive – for the city, the public and graffiti artists.
"The last thing they need to do is to try and impede the growth and success of any form of culture in this city," he says. "If the city doesn’t want to be a pro-active member of the urban community, then all they’re going to do is agitate and aggravate the situation. Because when any type of authoritative personnel tries to control youth expression, all it does is erupt into a shitstorm. And that’s the last thing the city needs."
Mill suggests that the city could help cultivate a positive youth urban culture and save a lot of tax dollars by taking a more compromised and open approach to graffiti art.
"You could save everybody a lot of money if you opened up some freewalls," says Mill. "You just canvass private businesses who will say, ‘Yeah, we’ll do a free wall. That’s cool.’ Just let them. Then you’re going to have your (police) bill drop."
But the city rejects that strategy because they’re afraid that if they allow even small amounts of uncontrolled graffiti, it will spread everywhere.
"Sure, we could give them freewalls," says Karen Hirl, the city’s graffiti management co-ordinator. "The reality is when you get 50 taggers, (the wall) gets full. Then they hit the next building, and the next and the next. It's like a cancer. It spreads.
"We're saying, ‘here's an alternative (with Urban Youth Worx). Work with us. That's the only way you're going to be able to express yourself.’ We're saying come over to the not-so-dark side."
The references to graffiti culture as cancerous and "the dark side" irk Mill, who says that these kinds of references are based on misconceptions of graffiti culture.
"It’s not this anarchist form of revolution," he says. "It’s a vibrant culture that hasn’t been acknowledged yet by municipalities. And the more you try to hold it down, the more it’s going to blow up in your face.
"(The city) is just repeating the cycle of failed policies, instead of saying, ‘hey, why don’t we learn from our mistakes and come up with something different?’" |
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