Merchants crack down in B.G. on vandalism

These signs are being distributed to stores by members of the Downtown Bowling Green Special Improvement District. Enlarge

BOWLING GREEN -- The message is simple, but important for downtown merchants tired of finding graffiti spray-painted on their walls: "Graffiti is a crime."

Barbara Ruland, executive director of the Downtown Bowling Green Special Improvement District, said her group is distributing red-and-white signs bearing that message and urging anyone who witnesses someone defacing a building or committing any crime to call Crime Stoppers, and possibly receive a reward of up to $1,000.

"We're trying to mount a small-scale but multifaceted awareness campaign," Ms. Ruland said. "We don't really appreciate having the graffiti here. We will take steps to get rid of it, and we are serious about prosecuting people who commit graffiti vandalism."

Although graffiti tends to appear for a while and then disappear for a while in the downtown area, it is an ongoing concern of -- and expense for -- local business owners who have to remove it. Ms. Ruland said studies have shown that the presence of graffiti also may lead to a loss in retail sales and property values as well as the perception that public safety is on the decline.

The signs that are now appearing in the city were designed by Kathy Gross, a Downtown BG board member. Ms. Ruland said an intern in her office took them to local schools and was surprised when a school staff member read it and said, "Oh, graffiti's a crime? I didn't know that."

"We need to educate people that it's not just harmless self-expression. It really is a property crime," she said. "The idea is we put them up in various locations where we think people who might see something or might be tempted to do something like this would be."

Bowling Green Police Lt. Brad Biller said that although catching graffiti painters in action is difficult, police have had some success identifying vandals who leave their marks on buildings.

"When you talk about graffiti artists and/or taggers, typically they do more than one and usually there are things that we can associate with what they're doing," he said, referring to symbols or styles that are repeated.

Late in November and early December, a vandal wrote on a number of downtown and campus buildings leaving the tag, "fa5v_O," on several. Police traced the graffiti to a 19-year-old former Bowling Green State University student who was later arrested on five counts of criminal mischief. The case is pending in Bowling Green Municipal Court.