Olympia halts graffiti clean up enforcement

OLYMPIA, Wash. — Graffiti has been popping up more often in downtown Olympia over the last few weeks.

For now, the city of Olympia said property owners can choose whether or not to clean it up.

“There’s more and more (graffiti) every day. Actually, you can hear the can in my backpack right now. I participate myself,” said Paul Szyszkowski.

Around town you can spot the places where people tried to cover up graffiti. However, in other areas, they're leaving the messages alone.

“Graffiti is not really the issue. The issue right now is that Black lives are being murdered by the police and if someone wants to express that in any way that they want then they should be able to do that,” said Ben Davidson, owner of Noping the Shop.

Walking around town, you’ll see “BLM,” “George Floyd” and “I can’t breathe” spray -painted on the side of buildings and on boarded -up windows.

Typically, the city would send a notice and tell the property owner to clean up the graffiti as soon as possible. These days, enforcement is on the back burner.

“Not taking down graffiti is crazy,” said one man. “There has to be some sort of standard that the building department and the city maintains, absolutely.”

“I support artistic creativity and expression, but there’s a level at which it should be respectful of the establishment,” said Szyszkowski.

Leonard Bauer, the city of Olympia’s Community Planning and Development director, said there are a couple reasons why the city stopped enforcing graffiti cleanup.

One reason is the cost.

“They should absolutely not be forced to do anything right now. Everybody is financially stressed right now,” said Bauer.

On top of that, some businesses said they want to show that they support protesters and the Black Lives Matter movement by leaving certain pieces up.

“There’s outrage and people need to see it and people need to not forget it,” said Davidson.

The current halt on enforcement is indefinite, but ultimately, property owners will be responsible for cleaning up the graffiti.

The city will still provide assistance to people who want help cleaning spray paint off their buildings.

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