Wharf Road residents in Bolinas awoke Tuesday morning to find portions of their homes and cars plastered with black-and-white spray-painted graffiti “tags,” some commenting on private property, others urging readers to “go home” and one depicting a middle finger. The tags appeared less than a week after the Marin County Department of Public Works erected signs that forbade spray-painting in the small beachside town, whose seawalls have long bore what some residents would call artful graffiti.
Two separate signs were placed at the beach entrances on Wharf Road and Brighton Avenue last Thursday, according to the county department. They were a response to recent complaints from residents that thick sections of layered spray paint had been peeling off the seawall and washing into the ocean with the tide. The signs called for the graffiti to cease and cited misdemeanor charges under California penal code as potential punishments for continuing the activity.
Both signs were completely blacked-out with spray paint by Tuesday morning.
“We suspected that the signs wouldn’t last long,” said Rob Carson, a senior planner with the department who liaisons with Bolinas through the county’s Stormwater Pollution Prevention Program. “It is the nature of anti-graffiti signs that they end up getting tagged.”
Mr. Carson said his department has received numerous requests to clean up the signs—which are coated with a protective material—and will do so as routine work orders are processed.
According to several sources in Bolinas, Monday’s late-night tagging represents the latest act in the ongoing friction between those in favor of graffiti as a means of free artistic expression and those opposed to it for a variety of reasons, including proprietary and environmental concerns. Several residents said they would not comment because the appearance of their names in the paper could mark them as targets for future tags.
The Marin County Sheriff’s Office said the tags may have been retribution for a graffiti mural that was painted over last week by an unnamed person. (The painting over of graffiti is not an infrequent act in recent months.) For many years, law enforcement has had to balance a respect for the right of free expression with existing laws designed to prevent vandalism of public and private property.
Lieutenant Doug Pittman said only in the last few months have a group of residents upset about the graffiti come forward to make their grievances known.
“This is a unique situation down there,” he said. “There are two different cultures, and they are in conflict right now. The Sheriff’s Office will do what it can to help mediate the situation.”
Lt. Pittman said the Sheriff’s Office has a suspect for the black-and-white tags and will be conducting an investigation.
Several residents said more “aggressive” tags have been popping up in town with greater frequency of late, and that Monday night represents the most distressing instance of a tagging “rampage.”“Frankly, we’re still in a state of shock,” said Ewan Macdonald, a 33-year Bolinas resident whose white Prius was tagged. “This is the first time that homes and cars have been attacked on Wharf Road.”
While some residents have gone so far as to break into pro-graffiti and anti-graffiti camps, for many the issue remains tied to the environmental threats that spray paint poses to ocean habitats.
“I don’t mind graffiti,” said Bolinas resident Remick Hart. “But I don’t want it in my backyard, literally and figuratively. And certainly it shouldn’t be done on the beach, where it goes into the ocean. From an environmental standpoint, not one homeowner on the beach wants this to be done.”
Duxbury Reef, North America’s largest shale reef, lies off the Bolinas coast. According to Mr. Carson, it carries strict water-quality protections due to its designation as an area of special biological significance. Spray paint contains volatile organic compounds and trace metals that can disrupt the reproduction and development of organisms within the reef’s aquatic environment; in addition, pollution puts the county at risk of losing its federal Clean Water Act stormwater permit, the penalties for which are heavy daily fines.
Critics of the recent tagging have urged community members to voice their views at a meeting hosted by the Bolinas Community Action Network at 5 p.m. on Sunday, May 31, at the Bolinas Community Center.