Got spray paint?
City to try to curb graffiti

By Bill Donovan
Staff Writer

GALLUP — City officials are getting ready to make it harder for teenagers to acquire spray paint to use for graffiti on walls and buildings around town.

The city council is looking at amending the city's graffiti ordinance to require stores that sell spray paint or glass etching cream to store it in locked cases so that employee assistance is required to purchase it.

City Manager Eric Honeyfield said the new ordinance would amend an ordinance the council approved in 2005 to deal with the problem.

At that time, the city had to assign a crew to go out each day to repair walls and fences that had been tagged. Since catching the culprits in the act was almost impossible, the city decided to try to curb their ability to acquire spray paint, and instead put restrictions on stores that sold it.

One reason for the problem, city officials thought at the time, was that teenagers were stealing the spray paint so that there would be no record of their purchase. The city passed an ordinance requiring stores to either put the spray paint in an area where it could be observed at all times by a store employee, or to put it under lock and key.

Both Wal-Mart and Home Depot decided to go the latter route, but many stores elected to put the spray paint near the cash register. City officials now say this approach is not working.

The plans now are to bring an amended ordinance to the city council to strengthen the laws, requiring all stores to keep spray paint under lock and key, in the hopes that this will make it harder for teenagers to acquire.

City Councilor Pat Butler, who owns an office supply company, said he decided not to sell it anymore because of all of the hassles.

There has also been talk of requiring anyone who purchases spray paint to show ID and have the store take down their names, but Butler and others said this creates too much paperwork. Besides, it is questionable as to whether anyone would be able to link a can of spray paint that was purchased to a specific act of graffiti.

Honeyfield said that this probably will not solve all of the problem, because teenagers would still have the ability to get markers and other instruments to graffiti walls, but it will hopefully curb some of the problem.