Taggers Leaving Mark on O.C. Consciousness : Graffiti: Explosion of spray-paint throughout county overwhelms authorities, business owners and residents.

ORANGE — Squinting into the morning sun, Chris Acosta carefully dipped his roller-brush into the smooth, white paint and surveyed the colorful scrawls scarring the school wall before him.

At one time, the wall might have been a tempting target for the 20-year-old convicted graffiti vandal. Now, painting it back to its original state is part of his penance--he is working off 500 hours of community service ordered by a judge.

The Anaheim man’s punishment is an example of how Orange County officials have begun to crack down on graffiti and the spray-painters known as taggers who increasingly are defacing the area’s freeway signs, bus windows, storefront walls and homes.

Tagging has been rising steadily in recent years, but law enforcement agencies say it exploded in Southern California during December. The National Graffiti Information Network, a Utah-based clearinghouse for municipal agencies, says the number of reported tagging incidents and requests for its cleanup tripled in the month of December.

To Orange County residents who once thought that tagging was a plague afflicting only the urban megalopolis to the north, the sudden spread of vandalism here has come as a shock.

Israel Garrigo, who owns a restaurant on Harbor Boulevard in Anaheim, says he has to paint over graffiti as often as once a week.

“I can’t afford to let it stay up because it hurts my business,” said Garrigo, 37. “It doesn’t look good.”

In Garden Grove, residents are angry that a billboard announcing a $25,000 reward for information about the murder of Police Officer Howard E. Dallies Jr. has been vandalized with graffiti.

Police and elected officials are frustrated, also. So exasperated was Anaheim Mayor Tom Daly that he recently mused at a meeting, “Maybe it’s time to bring back the public stockades.”

Most fearful are homeowners and business people struggling to protect their neighborhoods and their investments from the physical and psychological toll of graffiti.

Anxious over tagging’s spread, though uncertain of how exactly to stop it, city councils, police agencies, businesses and homeowners across the county, from La Habra to Laguna Hills, are trying to fight back:

* Thirteen Orange County cities have approved tough new anti-tagging ordinances. A new Westminster law would suspend convicted taggers’ driving privileges and make their parents liable for cleanup costs. A bill offered by state Sen. John R. Lewis (R-Orange) would allow judges to force taggers and their parents to perform 40 hours of cleanup work or face a $1,000 fine. Lewis’ bill passed the Judiciary Committee and will go to the Appropriations Committee.

* Nearly a dozen cities have posted rewards as high as $1,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of taggers, while the California Highway Patrol and other agencies have formed special anti-graffiti squads.

* The cost of cleaning up graffiti this year is expected to rise dramatically from the $1.7 million that Orange County cities spent last year. Officials--already struggling to balance budgets that have been strained by the recession--predict that costs will soar by 41%, to $2.5 million.

* In February, the County Board of Supervisors formed a special tagging task force made up of officials from the Sheriff’s Department, district attorney’s office, Orange County Juvenile Court, the Department of Education and the Probation Department. The task force, headed by Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez, is expected to create a comprehensive program to deal with graffiti.

The search for solutions has led in varied directions, some not very effective. Huntington Beach set aside a beachside wall just for graffiti, hoping that would satisfy taggers. But police and irate residents soon concluded it actually acted as a magnet, drawing vandalism that spilled into nearby areas.

One man in Orange bought special “paint resistant” paint and slathered it over tags that had been scrawled on his business, but to no avail: taggers sprayed right over it. The owners of an Anaheim company rigged sprinklers to a motion detector, hoping to drench mischievous teens. One Huntington Beach private investigation agency is now touting itself as a graffiti buster.

Meanwhile, residents who view tagging as a scourge in their neighborhoods continue to pack city council meetings to express their fury.

“The people’s tolerance level is down to zero,” said Judge Francisco P. Briseno, who presides over Orange County Juvenile Court, a vantage point that provides him a view of the steady parade of arrested vandals. Briseno says letters from residents arrive in his office almost daily pleading for relief from the assault on their walls and wallets.

“It’s hard to view these (vandalism) cases as some sort of prank or natural part of growing up,” the judge said. “The amount of damage makes that very difficult.”

City officials in Santa Ana, which authorities say has been especially hard-hit by taggers, are leading the counteroffensive. Quicker response time by Santa Ana police, a newly formed tagger task force and a full-time municipal cleanup crew have produced results: the city cleanup teams had 15% less square footage to paint over in February than they did in January.

Still, graffiti cleanup promises to be a $1.2-million expense for Santa Ana this year--almost half the $2.5-million cost expected countywide this year.

In Orange--where officials may have to lay off dozens of employees to help close a $10.7-million budget shortfall--the City Council recently approved a $200,000 graffiti cleanup and enforcement program.

“At a time when we are busy with the budget and trying to provide necessary city services, we are faced with these continuing rounds of graffiti removal,” complained Orange Councilwoman Joanne Coontz. “It’s very irritating. People are very angry about this.”

County government also plans to spend more than $60,000 on abatement. Similarly, keeping buses tag-free has cost the Orange County Transportation Authority $1.4 million over the last 18 months.

That doesn’t begin to measure the thousands of dollars that private property owners have spent to clean up vandalized walls, windows and signs. And many residents say paint bills pale in comparison to the anger and frustration that come with having their home vandalized.

“The first time they hit me I wanted to go out and find the culprits. . . . I was really mad,” said Anaheim resident Vic R. Jones, whose white garage door has been tagged twice this year. “I mean, hey, this is my property. How dare some (teen-ager) come around here . . . and deface my property.”

Leaving a Mark Through History

Experts insist that the only way to effectively stem the tide of vandalism is to understand who the taggers are and what forces send them into the streets at night.

Writing on walls has been a form of expression for centuries, and counterculture graffiti have existed in different forms for decades, as varied as the World War II-era fad of writing the slogan “Kilroy was here” to the urban street gang graffiti that swept New York City in the 1960s and ‘70s.

The allure of tagging, which evolved out of gang graffiti in the mid-’80s on the streets of New York, is part of the hip-hop culture, said Jay Beswick, founder of the National Graffiti Information Network.

The hip-hop phenomenon began with urban teens drawn together by Day-Glo colored “tagger” fashions, street art and the hard-edged messages conveyed in rap music. Unlike gang graffiti vandals, taggers don’t seek to mark off territory--instead, their goal is fame through proliferation.

Contrary to popular perception, taggers come from all walks of life, from rich and poor communities throughout Orange County.

If taggers from a poor section of La Habra have anything in common with the upper-middle-class taggers from affluent Anaheim Hills, experts said, it’s a troubled family life that makes them desire the brotherhood of a “tagging crew.”

“There has been a change in the family structure during the last two decades,” contends Thomas T. Hicklin, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the USC School of Medicine who specializes in youth behavior, including delinquency and broken homes. “There is less family structure and more distance in the families. The taggers and gang members are looking for family structure and finding it in the gangs (and tagging groups) more and more.”

This is especially true for taggers with middle-class backgrounds, Hicklin said. “Both mom and dad are now working. There is less time for the children,” he said. “A massive amount of effort is needed for the children’s supervision, and most parents are not willing to give it.”

While solutions are difficult to find, Beswick, who has interviewed hundreds of taggers for the graffiti information network, said the electronic and print media and fashion worlds deserve some of the blame for its popularity. Clothing that uses spray-paint-style letters encourages the fad, Beswick said.

Beswick said that while the dramatic local jump in graffiti during December can be partly attributed to the fact that teen-agers were out of school on holiday break, police noticed a surge in tagging soon after a high-profile Dec. 12 television program featuring taggers. Teen-agers have told him, he said, that they began tagging after watching that program.

“They want a name, they want to be somebody,” he said. “The whole thing is about fame and respect, striking a pose.”

An Allure Stronger Than Fear of Arrest

It’s Saturday night, and the Down To Mob tagging crew is assembling behind a Taco Bell in La Habra. Cursing the lack of parties, the teens are urging one of their leaders, Oscar, to use the can of spray paint in his deep trouser pocket on a nearby sign.

But Oscar, at 16 already a senior tagger in the youthful crew, shakes his head. As rap music pumps from a loud car radio, he scans the well-lit parking lot looking for police or storekeepers, and instructs his cohorts to be patient.

“No, man, just wait, we’ll do something later,” says Oscar, who agreed to an interview on the condition that his real name not be used. “I don’t want to get busted, man.”

Oscar said he knows the chances of arrest have increased in recent months, as have other street dangers facing taggers. But while the risks may be greater, he said the allure of tagging is still strong.

“It gets your name out there, it gets you respect,” he said. He rolls his eyes when asked if that respect is worth possible arrest. “That don’t matter. No one’s going to catch us.”

Of greater concern to taggers than police and angry citizens are so-called tag bangers, gangs that form the violent side of the graffiti subculture. Tag bangers paint and etch their monikers like taggers, but they go a step further: They cross out other taggers’ marks as a sign of dominance, and then they use intimidation and guns to protect their work.

“The difference between taggers and tag bangers,” said Oscar, “is that taggers write for fun, and tag bangers just want to hurt people and make trouble.”

Oscar said that during a recent confrontation, he fired a gun at another armed tagger for the first time, although no one was hurt.

“Why should I feel bad about that? Should I let them shoot at me and just stand there? They started it, they came here looking for trouble. They got it.”

Besides danger from others, tagging itself is sometimes hazardous. The overly long belts taggers wear to hold up their baggy pants are more than fashion accessories. Many experienced taggers use the leather straps to scale poles, hugging and inching their way up in the same manner a telephone pole worker would.

Such precarious tactics and bravado can lead to injury.

One example of that was the July, 1991, death of Enrique Becerra, who was hit by a truck in Seal Beach on his 17th birthday. Becerra, of Long Beach, was running across the San Diego Freeway after leaving his tag on pillars and center dividers.

Taggers often break the law just to acquire the cans of spray paint, which minors cannot legally buy in California.

“I racked this one,” said John, a 17-year-old Fullerton tagger, as he bent over and aimed a stream of red at some parking lot asphalt. Racking is tagger slang for shoplifting. “About 10 of us went into this store, and we all grabbed cans and pens and just ran. They can never catch all of us.”

He looked up from the red puddle forming on the pavement. “They usually don’t catch any of us.”

While Oscar and John are both high school dropouts from higher-crime areas, tagging is by no means limited to troubled neighborhoods.

Bumpr, a 15-year-old Anaheim Hills tagger, said he gets good grades and comes home to a comfortable, upper-middle-income household where both parents work.

Despite that, Bumpr, which is his tagging moniker, embraces graffiti and their fashions. He said he enjoys the reaction from people who see the baggy-clothed kids with baseball caps coming toward them with their pants cut along the bottom to make them look fringy, and shoes strapped with extra-long laces.

“I like the way it feels when you walk down the street. . . . They start rolling up their windows, locking their doors,” said Bumpr, who lost interest in playing football and found more excitement in tagging. “When we walk down the street, they try to avoid us. We just say they are scared of us.”

Unlike Oscar and the Down To Mob crew, who boast of more than 30 members and connections to larger Los Angeles crews, Bumpr belongs to one of many newer, smaller tagging crews. With a modest 15 members, the youngest 12 years old, Bumpr’s group call itself ISA (Insane Street Artists).

He aspires to tag for one of the more established, popular crews in the county known as EK (Evil Kids). According to Bumpr, there are more than several hundred members in the Orange County-based EK. “They are everywhere,” he said.

Gaining admittance to a crew typically requires a rite of passage; often it involves what taggers call a “battle.” Would-be members fan out and are given an allotted amount of time, usually a week, to spread the name of the crew they seek to enter. Whichever candidate scores the most tags becomes a crew member.

Other times, potential crew members will “mob” a bus for their initiation, with up to a dozen of them covering a stopped bus with paint and etchings to prove their valor.

Lately, Bumpr said, his parents have noticed that he has been wearing baggier clothes, staying out later and hanging around with a different crowd. They have asked if the oversize clothing, popular among taggers, signals an interest in tagging. But because he continues to get good grades, he said, his parents refrain from hounding him about it.

Once, he recalls, he was sitting with his family watching a television news program on graffiti when his parents jokingly accused him of spray-painting a wall pictured in the broadcast.

“It felt kind of weird when they said that,” Bumpr said. “They would be shocked if they found out I tagged.”

Police Work Harder, Make Slight Gains

Midnight had come and gone when Anaheim Police gang investigator David Flutts got the call--21 would-be taggers were being held by patrol officers behind a Motel 6.

Driving to the scene, Flutts was anxious to talk to the youths to learn why they insist on putting up graffiti almost everywhere imaginable.

Recently, he and partner Mark Irwin were given the full-time assignment of investigating taggers and their “crews,” who are cutting a swath of paint damage on walls countywide. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to any of them. We’ve got a lot to learn.”

While those two officers are still learning the ways and tactics of taggers, many police across Orange County have become experts on the subject after the recent boom in the vandalism.

As politicians and property owners have grown increasingly angry with the wave of tagging, police efforts have been stepped up.

Besides harsher penalties, a quicker response time and a concerted effort to identify and track local taggers have resulted in more than 200 arrests in Santa Ana since since Jan. 1, police said.

Santa Ana Police Lt. Robert Helton said the tagging “disease,” as he describes it, began spreading in September and turned into an epidemic in December. As long as there have been gangs in the city, there have been graffiti marking their turf, he said. But nothing from the past could compare to the current problems.

“You could almost watch it spread each day,” Helton said. “By November and December we had major tagging going on. Trees, construction equipment, road signs--it was just everywhere.”

Helton said many tagging crews have headed farther east or south in search of pristine walls. Santa Ana still has a dozen full-time workers on graffiti cleanup.

“Some taggers brag that they have left their mark from Los Angeles to San Diego,” Helton said, “and I wouldn’t doubt that a single bit.”

In Anaheim, police have begun a cat-and-mouse operation. Hoping to provide an irresistible lure to taggers, they paint clean a wall in a heavily marked-up area, and then post volunteers intermittently in hopes of catching the vandals in the act.

“A year ago, I would have kicked and screamed before I would have assigned anyone to tagging,” said Sgt. Craig Hunter, head of Anaheim’s eight-member anti-gang unit. “Not when we have to investigate the murders and robberies and everything else gangs do. But in the last few months, the problem has escalated, and the tagging crews are becoming more like gangs.”

Tagging has also become a quality-of-life issue, as residents see graffiti invade their neighborhood and demand that the police and city take action.

“I think there’s been more public response to this than there has been to anything else in a long time,” Fullerton Mayor Molly McClanahan said.

“When a gang member shoots another gang member, most people don’t see that and may not even care,” said Irwin, the Anaheim investigator. “But they can see the graffiti on their walls, and they want something done.”

Business Owners Write Off Profits

Driving along the neat rows of markets, small shops and offices that line La Habra Boulevard, it’s difficult at first glance to understand the torment merchants say they endure at the hands of taggers.

But a closer examination reveals the tell-tale sign of the struggle against tagging: portions of walls sloppily repainted in mismatched colors to cover graffiti.

As cities and residents get tough on taggers, painted-over walls are becoming almost as common as the graffiti themselves. The paintbrush offers tagging victims one of the few weapons available to battle it back.

For Joe and Georgeanne Penocello, it all comes down to vigilance. They are outside with paintbrushes in hand at the first sight of fresh graffiti on the building that houses their La Habra drafting office.

But after spending more than $2,000 on paint and bright lighting to combat the taggers, the Penocellos wonder whether theirs is a losing battle.

“You really get sick of it. You try to keep up a nice place. But after a while, you just say, ‘Oh, the hell with it,’ ” said Joe Penocello. “It just never stops.”

His frustration is echoed at city council meetings, neighborhood watch sessions and in conversations throughout the county.

In Fullerton earlier this year, the City Council held a heated four-hour public hearing during which scores of residents vented their anger over graffiti.

Fullerton Mayor McClanahan said one reason tagging touches such a nerve with residents is because it goes to the heart of how they feel about their community: “People see the (graffiti) and fear that their neighborhood is declining.”

Most demoralizing is the escalation in tagging over the last year.

Since last June, Tom Gulley’s Anaheim auto body and paint store has been hit by taggers an average of three times a month. It cost him $2,500 just to have the letters advertising his business redrawn after taggers covered them with spray paint.

“Sometimes you feel like you just want to stay up one night and catch them,” Gulley said.

When the Penocellos opened their business in the two-story building in 1987, graffiti rarely appeared on the walls. Slowly, tagging began to increase. Then, about a year ago, the Penocellos found themselves painting over graffiti every other week.

Hoping to discourage taggers from hitting the walls at night, the Penocellos installed a high-powered light outside. It did little good.

“They just painted right under it,” Georgeanne Penocello said.

In recent months, some taggers have become even more brazen and destructive. At least once, the building next door to the Penocellos’ was tagged in the afternoon by teen-agers apparently on their way home from school. More recently, their front windows were etched by taggers. Replacing the glass will cost hundreds of dollars.

All this has the Penocellos worrying about the future. “What will happen next? Will they carve up the car?” Joe Penocello said.

The vandalism has strained the Penocellos’ business in other ways, as well. One employee was so unnerved by the constant tagging, and the gang activity it suggests, that he requested that his desk be moved away from a window so he would be safer if a drive-by shooting occurred.

“We have customers that come into our business. They see graffiti and think this is a gang area,” Joe Penocello said. “People want a nice place to do business and work.”

Aside from the graffiti, the Penocellos say, their La Habra neighborhood is a perfectly fine place to do business. It makes them all the more intent on removing graffiti quickly and encouraging other local businesses to do the same.

After dealing with the effects of tagging for so long, the Penocellos find it hard to believe the often-expressed view that taggers are somehow less destructive than gang members. “It just gets you mad,” Joe Penocello said. “It makes you just want to sell and get out of the state.”

Tagger Talk

Every subculture has its own particular language. Here are some terms used by Orange County’s taggers:

Battles: When “crews” or individual taggers compete for a tag name or bragging rights by seeing who can tag the best or the most

Buffed: To have a tag cleaned or painted over

Crew: Group of taggers who typically share the same tag

Crossed out: Having a tag erased or defaced by a rival tagger

Down: Someone who is “down” is accepted and liked

Fill-in: A “throw-up” that is colored in completely

The heavens: Any lofty, hard-to-reach targets, often on freeways

Landmark: A tag guaranteed a long life because its spot makes it difficult to remove

Mob: When a group of taggers vandalizes a wall or bus en masse

Piece: An intricate painting, more complex than initials

Racking: Shoplifting spray-paint, pens or other tagging tools

Rooftop: A tag that requires hanging over a balcony or ledge

Scribing: To etch tags, usually into windows

Sno-balls: Tips for spray-paint cans that produce an extra-wide stream of paint

Throw-up: A tag outlined in bubble-style letters, often in two colors

Take-outs: When a tagger or “crew” must abandon its tag name, leave an area or quit tagging

Toys: Term of contempt for amateur or sloppy taggers

Source: Interviews with taggers

Researched by GEOFF BOUCHER / Los Angeles Times

Tagging Truth and Fiction

With the explosion of tagging, a variety of false perceptions have emerged about who taggers are and what the scrawls represent.

Myth: Tagging is a problem only in poor communities.

Fact: Cities throughout Orange County report recent increases in incidents of tagging, including many affluent communities.

Myth: The presence of graffiti is a sign that a neighborhood has gang and crime problems.

Fact: Because taggers move around, the neighborhoods they target vary. Taggers have hit low-crime areas. Residents in many of the areas hardest hit by taggers consider their neighborhoods safe and comfortable.

Myth: All taggers are gang members.

Fact: Most taggers do not have gang affiliations. Though many travel in groups, relatively few are violent or commit crimes other than vandalism.

Source: Times reports

Researched by SHELBY GRAD / For The Times

The Cost of Tagging

As tagging has become more widespread, most cities have had to increase- the amount of money they spend on graffiti removal. Below are the totals spent by each city last year, the amount they have budgeted this fiscal year for cleanup efforts, the graffiti hot lines for each city and recent steps each has taken to combat the problem.

Anaheim

Graffiti hot line: (714) 776-1306

1991-92 Expenses: $256,000

1992-93 Budgeted: $217,000

Recent action: Passed ordinance strengthening penalties against taggers and holds parents responsible.

Brea

Graffiti hot line: (714) 671-4465

1991-92 Expenses: $15,000

1992-93 Budgeted: $68,000

Recent action: Considering ordinance that would create mandatory penalties for taggers.

Buena Park

Graffiti hot line: (714) 821-8658

1991-92 Expenses: $54,000

1992-93 Budgeted: $90,000

Recent action: Has a 2-year-old ordinance requiringresidents to remove graffiti promptly.

Costa Mesa

Graffiti hot line: (714) 548-4165

1991-92 Expenses: $39,000

1992-93 Budgeted: $100,000

Recent action: Recently approved fines and other penalties for taggers.

Cypress

Graffiti hot line: (714) 229-6600

1991-92 Expenses: $28,000

1992-93 Budgeted: $60,000

Recent action: In the process of updating graffiti ordinance to include tagger penalties.

Dana Point

Graffiti hot line: (714) 248-3560

1991-92 Expenses: $8,500

1992-93 Budgeted: $15,000

Recent action: None

Fountain Valley

Graffiti hot line: (714) 965-4493

1991-92 Expenses: $11,000

1992-93 Budgeted: $24,000

Recent action: Approved ordinance that bans felt tip markers, aerosol paint cans or etching tools in public places after dusk and before dawn or on private property without the owner’s consent.

Fullerton

Graffiti hot line: (714) 738-3108

1991-92 Expenses: $82,000

1992-93 Budgeted: $120,000

Recent action: Recently outlawed graffiti and set up penalties against taggers.

Garden Grove

Graffiti hot line: (714) 741-5381

1991-92 Expenses: $50,000

1992-93 Budgeted: $70,000

Recent action: Approved ordinance making tagging illegal and sets up a $500 reward.

Huntington Beach

Graffiti hot line: (714) 960-8861

1991-92 Expenses: $55,000

1992-93 Budgeted: $82,000

Recent action: Considering requiring stores to place aerosol paints, etching tools and markers behind sales counters, limiting the number of times the city will remove graffiti before charging property owner and requiring large property owners to protect their property from becoming targets for graffiti.

Irvine

Graffiti hot line: (714) 724-7196

1991-92 Expenses: $23,881

1992-93 Budgeted: $34,000

Recent action: Approved anti-tagging ordinance in 1991.

Laguna Beach

Graffiti hot line: (714) 497-0701

1991-92 Expenses: $5,000

1992-93 Budgeted: $5,000

Recent action: Considering ordinance that would stiffen punishments for taggers.

Laguna Hills*

Graffiti hot line: (714) 707-2688

1991-92 Expenses: N/A

1992-93 Budgeted: $20,000

Recent action: None

Laguna Niguel

Graffiti hot line: (714) 362-4300

1991-92 Expenses: $1,000

1992-93 Budgeted: $10,000

Recent action: None

La Habra**

Graffiti hot line: (310) 905-9723

1991-92 Expenses: --

1992-93 Budgeted: --

Recent action: Approved an ordinance that requires businesses to lock up spray-paint and other graffiti implements to prevent their theft.

Lake Forest*

Graffiti hot line: (714) 707-5583

1991-92 Expenses: N/A

1992-93 Budgeted: 9,600

Recent action: Passed ordinance in January banning spray-paint cans in city parks or playgrounds.

La Palma

Graffiti hot line: (714) 523-1140

1991-92 Expenses: $3,000

1992-93 Budgeted: $4,000

Recent action: Ordinance passed last year established $100 reward, parental liability for graffiti removal costs.

Los Alamitos

Graffiti hot line: (714) 827-8670

1991-92 Expenses: $3,100

1992-93 Budgeted: $5,100

Recent action: Approved anti-graffiti ordinance in 1990.

Mission Viejo

Graffiti hot line: (714) 582-7155

1991-92 Expenses: $20,000

1992-93 Budgeted: $20,000

Recent action: Tougher ordinance being prepared; city expected to budget $30,000 next year.

Newport Beach

Graffiti hot line: (714) 644-3055

1991-92 Expenses: $5,000

1992-93 Budgeted: $10,000

Recent action: To consider new ordinance May 24 aimed at removing spray-paint cans from shelves.

Orange

Graffiti hot line: (714) 744-7279

1991-92 Expenses: $45,000

1992-93 Budgeted: $50,000

Recent action: Next budget, costs expected to hit $197,000; conviction reward goes up to $500 on July 1.

Placentia

Graffiti hot line: (714) 993-8164

1991-92 Expenses: $63,000

1992-93 Budgeted: $120,000

Recent action: Final vote on new ordinance due Tuesday; raises reward to $500, makes parents liable.

San Clemente***

Graffiti hot line: (714) 361-8201

1991-92 Expenses: --

1992-93 Budgeted: --

Recent action: None

San Juan Capistrano

Graffiti hot line: (714) 493-1171

1991-92 Expenses: $21,000

1992-93 Budgeted: $24,000

Recent action: New ordinance being prepared, likely toestablish reward, parent liability and penalties.

Santa Ana

Graffiti hot line: (714) 565-4006

1991-92 Expenses: $850,000

1992-93 Budgeted: $1,200,000

Recent action: March ordinance established $500reward; convicted vandals reimburse city.

Seal Beach

Graffiti hot line: (310) 431-2527

1991-92 Expenses: $5,000

1992-93 Budgeted: $8,000

Recent action: March ordinance allows city workers to clean graffiti on private property.

Stanton

Graffiti hot line: (714) 821-6847

1991-92 Expenses: $21,500

1992-93 Budgeted: $21,500

Recent action: Ordinance passed year ago; city and local businesses considering creating reward fund.

Tustin

Graffiti hot line: (714) 544-8890

1991-92 Expenses: $11,700

1992-93 Budgeted: $36,000

Recent action: Set $250 reward in February; also using anti-tagging education program and poster contest.

Villa Park

Graffiti hot line: (714) 998-1500

1991-92 Expenses: $800

1992-93 Budgeted: $1,500

Recent action: None

Westminster

Graffiti hot line: (714) 898-3311

1991-92 Expenses: $105,000

1992-93 Budgeted: $105,000

Recent action: Ordinances in February, March; $1,000 reward for conviction.

Yorba Linda

Graffiti hot line: (714) 671-4465

1991-92 Expenses: $8,700

1992-93 Budgeted: $10,000

Recent action: $500 reward for tagger convictions; education effort through city cable channel.

* Was not in budget last year

** Uses volunteer efforts only

*** Doesn’t track graffiti costs

Source: Individual cities

Researched by DAVID A. AVILA, GEOFF BOUCHER and SHELBY GRAD / For The Times