Reminds me of that one time at band camp…

CHILDREN as young as seven are being taught graffiti vandalism techniques through a new range of toys.

Graffiti opponents have called for an Australia-wide ban on Urban Colourz, toys inspired by street graffiti, for fear they glorify a criminal act.

The State Government is investigating if sale of the toys breaches new laws that outlaw promotion of illegal street art.

The toys teach children how to create graffiti “tags” of the sort illegally scrawled on Victorian walls and buildings.

A range of products are available under the Urban Colourz brand name including:

A BATTERY-powered airbrush that sprays paint.

MULTI-coloured coloured pens shaped like spray paint cans.

BOOKS filled with graffiti tags, drawings and pictures.

STENCILS of graffiti motifs to colour in and copy.

TEMPORARY tattoos and graffiti stickers.

Residents Against Graffiti Everywhere (RAGE) president Steve Beardon says the toys glorify a crime that costs Victorian tax payers millions of dollars each year.

Read More: Outrage on graffiti toys
You can check out the toys they are arguing about here: Urban Colourz

THE NEWS HAS BROKE!!!

A graffiti vandal, making the second stop on what his lawyer called a “triborough tour” of the city’s courts, was conditionally discharged Thursday and was ordered to pay $5,000.

Alain Mariduena pleaded guilty in Manhattan in August to one count of third-degree criminal mischief for writing graffiti, much of it on subway cars, with his tag, KET. Conditional discharge means he must avoid future criminal conduct and pay his fine; the sentence differs from probation because it’s not court supervised.

According to his lawyer, Ronald Kuby, Mariduena’s tag has become known around the world.

Kuby said his client would be sentenced Friday for graffiti crimes in Brooklyn. In that case he is to be spared jail, fined $3,000 and ordered to paint a mural.

Last month, Mariduena, 36, was sentenced in Queens to probation and ordered to pay $1,274 in restitution and a $3,000 fine for graffiti offenses, Kuby said.

Mariduena, who lives in the Inwood section of Manhattan, said on his Web site that he pleaded guilty in all three cases to avoid prison. Kuby said Mariduena has retired from illegal graffiti.

Read More: New York graffiti vandal KET is fined $5,000
More: In Plea Deal, Artist Admits to Subway Graffiti in 3 Boroughs

New Pics coming soon! Yep! My homie Tipz shot a batch of pics at one of the local yards recently. Here’s a teaser. More to come!

QUEST

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