GILROY
– Small business owner Polly Kawata thought downtown Gilroy was
the perfect place to open her flower shop, but thanks to constant
late-night vandalism, she’s changing her mind.
GILROY – Small business owner Polly Kawata thought downtown Gilroy was the perfect place to open her flower shop, but thanks to constant late-night vandalism, she’s changing her mind.
She’s just one of the more than 30 local business and property owners in the city’s core blocks that were hit hard by a recent rash of graffiti, and Kawata thinks something needs to change.
Kawata opened Frank’s Garden Florist at 7600 Eigleberry St. in October, and since then she has spent at least $4,000 to repair spray paint and vandalism damage.
The vandalism started with large spray-painted “tags” Kawata found on the outside walls of the stucco building. Then it advanced to the graffiti-like etching on all of her store’s windows and front doors, and earlier this month someone threw three rocks through the store’s front windows.
In fact, it’s gotten so bad that Kawata now is forced to park her delivery vans in a different overnight location, fearing their windows will be etched and spray painted like they were last winter.
“We’ve been spray painted one to five times a month since we’ve been here,” said Kawata, who is from Watsonville. “It’s very frustrating and discouraging as a business owner because it’s just one thing after another. Why is this problem so bad for such a small town?”
According to the Gilroy Police Department, it is not unusual for the city to see an increase in graffiti during the spring months, although the April 11 spray-painting spree that hit 30 businesses, homes and vehicles in the area of Monterey Road and Eigleberry Street between First and Fifth streets – along with two businesses on Arroyo Circle near the Outlets – was one of the most destructive single-night sprees in recent memory.
Thanks to citizen tips and reports, police were able to arrest Ruben Xavier Flores, 19, of the 7800 block of Church Street, along with a 15-year-old male from Gilroy for the taggings that caused more than $5,000 in damage in one night.
Flores is set to be arraigned on April 29 in San Martin.
Throughout all of 2002, graffiti vandals caused $25,000 worth of damage in Gilroy, according to estimates by the police department.
“That was the largest outburst we’ve had in quite some time, but we’ve had a noticeable increase overall as well,” said Sandra Sammut, a GPD community service officer and coordinator of the city’s $20,000-a-year anti-graffiti program. “We don’t know how it’s all connected, but we do know we were very fortunate to catch these guys because the damage was so extreme. … We always see a rise in graffiti in the spring for whatever reason, but it does seem to be a bit higher than normal this year.”
While the GPD had been hailed by City Council and others for cracking down on the amount of graffiti in Gilroy since council passed its 1998 “zero tolerance” policy on graffiti, citizens are starting to complain that vandals are beginning to cloud their city’s beauty once again.
Life-long Gilroy resident Cherri Marshall lives on a busy residential corner at Church Street and Ronan Avenue and deals with graffiti and vandals on an almost weekly basis.
She and her husband have erected two fences around their property to deter vandalism, but the fences have become prime targets for graffiti.
On Wednesday morning, Marshall heard a large group of young males beginning to spray paint her fence, but when her husband came out of the house the juveniles picked up their spray paint cans and fled.
“It’s horrible always to have to watch out your window,” said Marshall, who runs a day care at her home. “These kids are old enough to realize what they’re doing is wrong, but they still do it anyway. You have to wonder where their parents are.”
Sammut said the majority of “taggers” or graffiti sprayers are males between the ages of 12 and 17 and that only about 12 percent of all graffiti in the city is gang-related, although Marshall reported that the group of boys who began to spray her fence on Wednesday were all wearing red, a color associated with gangs.
“They just want to get recognition,” Sammut said. “That’s why our main goal is abatement. We want all graffiti covered as quickly as possible.”
The city ordinance on graffiti states that reported graffiti must be removed within 48 hours of its appearance, or else the property owner can be fined. The same policy also states that any youth arrested for first-time graffiti activity must serve 66 hours of community service, go through a restorative justice program and mandatory counseling. Penalties for a second violation include 130 hours of community service, formal probation and possible jail time.
The GPD has organized several volunteer groups such as “Wipeout Watch” which give their time to clean up local graffiti, and police try to provide paint and brushes to graffiti victims when possible, but sometimes the demand is too high.
To keep in line with the city ordinances, business owners like Kawata are often forced to pay employees to paint over graffiti, and that can become very costly, Kawata said.
Searching for any way to prevent the graffiti, Kawata has looked into purchasing a $2,600 camera system for her store, and she and some of her small business neighbors have discussed pooling money to hire a private security company for the night time.
“All these things are very expensive for a small business owner,” Kawata said. “We shouldn’t have to worry about this in Gilroy – not feeling secure in our stores. … Those kids don’t realize who they’re hurting.”
To report graffiti in progress call 911. To report old graffiti call the city’s graffiti hotline at 846-0395. To volunteer for graffiti cleanup with Wipeout Watch, call Sandra Sammut at 846-6572.
