29 March 2000

Mayor Attacks Graffiti

Tagging, or graffiti, call it what you will is simply unacceptable, says the Mayor, Garry Moore.

He said this today when he launched a citywide campaign against graffiti. He said graffiti was an act of aggression that, if let pass, provided young offenders with a green light to move further up the criminal offending ladder.

"The more violent and immediately expensive crime tends to hog the headlines but the minor crime of tagging also has countless victims," Mr Moore said.

The maintenance bill to clean off tagging was "blowing out maintenance bills all over the place and adding another cost that has to be paid somehow."

He said graffiti was wanton destruction of the visual environment, an act of visual violence, that added up to the theft of ordinary people’s rights to choose how their environment looked.

"I’ve got one simple message to give out to Christchurch taggers – the party is over. Christchurch will now have zero tolerance for tagging," he said.

He announced a special hot line for the reporting of outbreaks of graffiti as 0800 TAGGED or 824433.

Graffiti removal teams will be available seven days a week, he said.