The streets are blighted with mismatched paint. Large cream colored splotches speckle tan walls and if you were to stare directly into the side of a concrete building structure you would almost certainly find faint outlines of words, messages and names; all pressure-washed or bleached into a ghostly existence.  While most property owners view graffiti as an unsightly blemish, is painting over that graffiti with a slightly different color much better?

It all depends on your perspective. While there are those who maintain that graffiti has an aesthetic value, there are others who call it a nuisance. Some people will urge you to recognize the artistry, or the underlying message graffiti presents. This message, yet another perspective  declares, is a warning of gang activity, crime, and vandalism. 

The City of Sacramento, through it's Graffiti Abatement  Program,  represents the latter point of view, as do many residents and business owners. One common concern is that graffiti marks impending crime. For instance, once a building has been tagged (that is to say, marked by a nickname or drawn on) with spray paint or other implements, that building may attract other sorts of crime in the immediate area. This belief is so present that the City of Sacramento has a strict graffiti ordinance  for property owners, which demands that graffiti is painted over or removed in less than two weeks.  Shannon McCabe, a Southside Park florist, finds it best to remove graffiti as quickly as possible because she and other business owners want the area to look nice and attract new commerce. Graffiti has already been removed several times from the building in which McCabe works, this year alone. Left-over paint has been used to cover the recent tags, so costs have been minimal. This is considered lucky, because the potential costs could be in the thousands. 

Many citizens complain that too much time and tax dollars are wasted on the anti-graffiti effort. The annual cost to eliminate graffiti in the Sacramento area is over $1.5 million.  That’s a lot of money, and it is questionable if any of the tactics used to curb graffiti actually work. Is there evidence that graffiti encourages crime? Or encourages gang activity? Is the city continually painting over this perceived blemish, while doing nothing truly proactive? Is this war between graffiti artists and business owners a dispute over property or visual space?