In a little town called Ballina in Ireland they are finally started to see an increase in graffiti related crimes and are thinking of cracking down.

BALLINA Town Council has resolved to get tough to those responsible for graffiti in the town.

Council members were shocked when photographs of some crude graffiti in the Teeling Street car park in town were circulated at their monthly meeting on September 20 last.

The problem had been highlighted by Cllr Johnny O’Malley who tabled a motion that the Council adopt a bye law to deal with what he termed as “a particularly crude anti social behaviour that is becoming more and more prevalent in Ballina”.

He said those responsible for the graffiti were so insensitive and taking from the good work done by so many in the community such as the Tidy Towns committee.

He recommended that the Council adopt a bye law to make the practice an offence and that offenders be punished by means of community service involving the removal of the graffiti rather than fines.

“This impacts on people’s view of the town and their enjoyment of the town. I’m not interested in fines. I’m interested in naming and shaming, catching the culprits and making them take the time to remove the graffiti,” he concluded.

Read More: Council to get tough on graffiti artists

You know, I’ve never really hoped for someones incarceration for graffiti before. But this little kid takes the cake. There’s rules that you need to follow kid. Obviously you were never taught them or maybe you were just too stupid to follow them. Either way I hope they catch you.

A graffiti tagger struck the landmark Crystal Cathedral shortly after the church held a community festival, doing tens of thousands of dollars in damage, a church spokesman said Tuesday.

The tagger struck around 8:30 p.m. Saturday and damaged the base of the famous glass spire and other buildings at the church, said Ben Rhodes, a cathedral spokesman.

Church officials later determined that the tagger, who appeared to be in his early 20s, etched the symbol “B1R” into 11 spots. Repairs will cost at least $38,000, Rhodes said.

Read More: Tagger Attacks Famed Crystal Cathedral

My Notes: The news article above reported that the kid scribed “B1R”, but I analyzed the pictures and video they took and also noticed his full nick is “BATER”. So, whoever knows this guy please check him for the whole community.

They seriously don’t have lives way over there. Seriously.

You can adopt a child, a tree or even a highway. In the Bronx you can also adopt a mailbox.

All of the 60 mailboxes in an East Bronx neighborhood have adoptive parents who paint signature post-office blue or green over graffiti almost as soon as it is scribbled.

“If you wait a few weeks it’s easy for the graffiti vandals to gain notoriety,” said Mary Jane Musano, who gathers the paint from the post office, buys supplies and distributes them out of the Waterbury LaSalle Community Association to volunteers in the Schuylerville neighborhood. “We ask people to adopt a mailbox that is very, very close to their home, so they pass it on their way out and can paint it right away. That’s the only way it works.”

Read More: Volunteers tackle graffiti on mailboxes

There’s an odd sight on the Hollywood freeway recently that I’m sure you’ve either noticed in your commute or seen news stories about it. It’s a house! As of today though (Sept. 24) it’s been getting hit with graffiti because of all the publicity it’s been causing. MSK is tagged on the side facing traffic, an undecipherable throw-up is on the side facing traffic horizontally, and a few nasty tags in various places. Peep the article:

Motorists traveling Southern California highways are used to seeing all sorts of debris, from mattresses to luggage to clothing. But the ultimate in freeway flotsam has landed along the Hollywood Freeway: a house.

Read More: Drivers Zoom by Roadside Debris – a Home

UPDATE: The house has been moved to a storage yard in Santa Clarita.
New tags on it: META, TRIGZ, ICR, J4F (Just 4 Fun), MENSO

I have a HUGE surprise for you guys, but I’m sorry, I can’t really let you know about it quite yet. Just take my word for it, it will be sooo bad ass! I can tell you this much: it’s a website, graff community based. I will let you guys in on more once I get closer to releasing the beta.
Back to your regularly scheduled program.

Dovcom? ABS, England U.K. was sentenced today.

A vandal linked to more than 1,000 graffiti incidents causing more than £200,000 in damage has been sentenced to 300 hours’ community service.

Daniel Tyndale, 21, who has had addresses in St Philips, Bristol and Devizes, Wiltshire, received a 12-month jail sentence suspended for two years.

He admitted a series of offences throughout the Bristol area.

He was charged with nine counts of criminal damage with 350 other graffiti offences being considered.

Tyndale sprayed graffiti on numerous locations including the listed Bristol University psychology building, a van on Gloucester Road, the Polish church on Cheltenham Road, a shop near Christmas Steps, Newfoundland Road police station and the metal footbridge near Bower Ashton.

Read More: Vandal sentenced over graffiti

You just can’t make this stuff up.

A GRAFFITI vandals’ paradise is operating out of a train station owned by the State Government.

The This Is It store, advertised on one of the city’s biggest pro-graffiti websites, is leasing a shop in Richmond railway station.

The revelation comes days after the Government launched a graffiti crackdown.

A Sunday Herald Sun investigation has revealed:

- The store is advertised with the scrawled tag This Is It on the side of a train.

- A website the store is advertised on includes a gallery of dozens of defaced Connex carriages.

- Inside the shop is a display of more than 100 spray cans.

Anti-graffiti campaigner and Liberal MP Murray Thompson said: “It beggars belief that you can buy graffiti paraphernalia from a store in a railway station.

“What next: homemade bomb shops at airports, balaclavas at banks or free flares for soccer fans?”

Read More: Richmond train station home for graffiti shop

“Raider” busted for being a top deck vandal wussy.

A prolific graffiti vandal has been banned from the top deck of any public transport bus anywhere in the country.

Billy Murrell, 17, from Plumstead, south-east London, has several criminal damage convictions on trains and buses using marker pens, police said.

It is the first time Transport for London (TfL) has obtained an anti-social order against a “tagger”.

The order also bans Murrell from carrying marker pens or sharp instruments on public transport.

The anti-social behaviour order (Asbo) which is valid for three years, was issued at Greenwich Magistrates Court on 12 September.

Read More: Top deck ban for graffiti vandal

With permission from Moscow authorities some residents in the city are giving their homes a brand new look with the help of foreign designers and this way the city’s old Soviet-era buildings turn into works of art.

Much of Moscow was built in Soviet times, and back then attention was given to practicality rather than form and layout.

Though warm and functional, these buildings aren’t always pleasing to the eye of the capital’s visitors and residents.

Daniel is a 27 year old street painter from the Netherlands. He has traveled to Moscow with his friends to help give it a new look. With a spray can in his hand, he makes a brick wall in to a work of art.

Read More: Graffiti arists have a field day in Moscow

So, this girl from San Diego has recently been knitting seemingly non-random advertisements and placing them on sign posts around San Diego and Golden Hill, California. Kinda’ odd don’t you think? Well, her work has recently been noticed by members of the media and even reached as far as a news story about “guerrilla marketing” in San Diego, California by The Union Tribune.

The news article is a pretty good read. They go over how Shepard Fairey (originally from San Diego, CA) kind of started the whole guerrilla marketing concept with his Andre The Giant (OBEY) campaign in the late ’90s. The article is focused on how major marketing companies have recently been mixing street art concepts with their advertising in attempts of gaining street credit…and more sales.

Anyways, back to the girl. Her name is Natalie Holford. She documents all of her “hits” at her blog over at blogspot and she has nick-named her pieces “pole warmers.” She also needs to wake the hell up and realize that she’s, just like every other vandal out there, defacing property which is not hers…which is illegal of course. In the news article she stated, “The reason I do it is because I like to see something that I created in a public place.”; that sounds remarkably similar to common reasons graffiti artists/vandals say about why they do what they do. Oh, but it gets better. She further said, “I like that you can remove a pole warmer and it leaves nothing behind, unlike other types of guerrilla art.”; that doesn’t put aside the fact that you are still defacing property which is not yours!
Gotta’ love the new kids.

Update: (Oct. 16, 2007) Chick needs to learn respect…oh, and I found this related article: Off the hook street art <- Even funnier of a read than the above.