Graffiti a million dollar problem for Seattle, but only a misdemeanor for taggers

Graffiti costs the city of Seattle and property owners millions of dollars to clean up.

But the city can’t do anything about the defunct Tubs building in the University District, one of the most notorious landmarks for graffiti in this region, because the owner has allowed it to become a “free wall.”

He wouldn’t tell me his name, but I caught up with a tagger I’m going to call “Joe” as he was spraying the old Tubs building recently. It’s the last free wall standing in Seattle where he can go to town without getting arrested because the owner is OK with graffiti. But he only comes here for practice. It’s not exactly fun for him.

“It’s not risky,” says Joe. “There’s no thrill and no risk involved here which makes it not impressive to the community.”

The community Joe’s talking about is the graffiti sub-culture, and for those who are a part of it, the only way to impress is by becoming infamous.

“They want to be famous for something bad,” says Joe.

He says it’s a big adrenaline rush to spray his brand of artwork on freeway signs and bridge overpasses. He knows it’s dangerous, but he says a lot of people will see it because it’s not easy to remove.

“The general population is like, ‘Whoa. How the heck do they do that?'” says Joe. “That’s cool, being able to do something that other people are either scared to do our obviously don’t want to do because it’s illegal.”

The battle against graffiti is an expensive one. In recent years, the City of Seattle has spent more than a million dollars in enforcement, removal, and education.

For private property owners, if you’re hit with graffiti, you could face fines of $100 a day if you don’t clean it up in a timely manner.

Joe says he typically targets places that have just gone out of business because it’s unlikely they’ll remove his work.

“I would make a point to aim for places that already went out of business or that were freshly out of business, so that my name will go up there, it’s a main intersection, everyone’s going to see it, and nobody is going to paint it because it’s out of business, so it will stay there longer.”

Seattle Police Detective Christopher Young says kids that do this a lot of times are narcissistic and thinking of their own needs and wants and not other people. After countless interviews with taggers, Young says he’s learned there are a lot of myths about graffiti.

“Probably the biggest one is that it’s all gang related when in fact I would say about 1 percent of graffiti is related to criminal street gangs,” says Young.

In reality, he says they are mostly guys between their teens and late 20s who are hooked on the adrenaline rush and the attention they get. Some are good artists but Young says that’s purely coincidental.

“They may tell you, ‘Oh I’m an artist. I have a right to art. It’s free speech.’ But that’s not the motivation when I talk to these guys.”

If they’re caught in the act, they will be arrested, but Young says it’s only a misdemeanor crime.

“Usually they’re just doing it on some building and the poor owner just has a bucket of paint and they go, ‘Well I came out and I painted it over.’ So it’s hard to quantify a large dollar loss, but it’s a nuisance and an eyesore.”

At 23 years old, Joe’s been doing this for nearly half his life. He’s already been arrested five or six times, but he has no plans to quit tagging anytime soon. He says he plans to keep tagging all his life.

“Without this I would have no thrill in my life,” says Joe. “This is what I’m addicted to. This is my addiction. It’s what I like to do, and it’s awesome.”