Have you seen the giant "AK47" tags on the side of the old Schnucks at Loughborough Commons or on another building along South Broadway, clearly visible from I-55?

It looks like they were painted by the Jolly Green Giant.

Repent ye sinners. The death of "no answers" is nigh.

overheard at the last ACC's staff meeting before the election..."we need to get a handle on this 'no answers' thing"

Is this related to the grafitti on Mcdonnald Park at Utah and Bent? Or the anarchy symbol on the front of historic Tower Grove Park at Arsenal and Morgan Ford? I don't expect anyone to know, but I'm looking for answers.

As a 32 year resident of Tower Grove South I take any defacing of public property pretty personally. And I agree that there are other ways to get messages out besides this childish means. Grafitti does not nurture sympathy, no matter how important the cause may be. It causes people to be reviled at the act and miss the message, especially when it's in their home neighborhood. Feelings of invasion often trump sympathy for a cause.

Graffitists are all about me-first, part of the problem, not the solution. In this country, to express yourself with vandalism is a cowardly act. There is no argument to be made favoring vandalism. There should be no empathy for vandals, only the victims.

There is no right to express creativity, a political message, a desire to be feared by others, angst, desire for others to recognize you by your scribble and think you are important, or mark turf for criminal activity, by destroying private or public property.

Today, in this country, unless a person is intellectually retarded or lazy, a person can find and use venues for expression that do not involve victimizing others, damaging their property and their sense of security. I find it hard to believe that our graffiti problem is attributable to idiot savants instead of selfishness and laziness.

I would respectfully suggest that ACC focus on the victims. I urge you to talk with the residents, businesses, neighborhood leaders dealing with the damage, oftentimes ongoing damage. I urge you to talk with the City agencies that deal with graffiti every day: Citizens Service Bureau (should be able to get a tally on number of calls), NSOs, Operation Brightside, Parks Recreation Forestry Dept, aldermen, police, park rangers, juvenile justice, courts, etc. Find out how much graffiti costs in time, labor, money: abatement, prosecution, prevention and the negative impact on quality of life. A blight on the landscape is only one of the many negatives to graffiti.

Property owners are responsible for timely removal of graffiti/graffito that is visible from a street or alley. If you don't clean it up, and it gets reported, the matter ends up with Forestry Division. You get a notice with a deadline and if you don't take care of it, the City takes care of it, and you get billed. It's a process similar to what happens when you let a yard go to weeds and trash. There's a fine for each day you fail to get the graffiti/graffito removed. Operation Brightside has a program to assist property owners with abatement: 5,000 sites a year.

Armed with all the information you acquire about the victims, ACC would have a better opportunity to query the vandals. I would bet good money that most graffitists do not recognize their crimes as having victims, don't care, or don't recognize their graffiti as a crime. Either way, they have no excuse for their behavior more compelling that the story of their victims.

Mostly, I want to implore upon ACC to reconsider and not give these vandals the validation they seek, which is what some will get from you no matter the story angle taken.

What does graffiti mean? It means call 622-4800 to report it. It means get rid of it as fast as you can.

I have seen the "AK47" on the building what is up with that? Is this some kind of gang? How are they doing that and not getting caught?

people are homeless or dying from war, and you conservative fucks are whining about grafitti.
found this online for ya, since you all only appear to hate "political" graffiti -

"ILLEGAL ART"

"ILLEGAL ART, or any art that incites people to COMMIT ILLEGAL ACTS, is the only type of art worth creating. In years gone by, this was not the case, but today, in the AGE OF THE IMAGE, any art which is not inherently DANGEROUS is not art at all, but rather just another commodity to be packaged and sold back to you by various corporations. ART used to have something to do with AESTHETICS, but now that aesthetics are a function of FINANCIAL VALUE (whatever will help sell products is good), we must find another standard for art. In the past, there were LAWS of aesthetics which governed artistic production. Paintings had to look a certain way and music had to sound a certain way. When artists VIOLATED those rules, their art was often ATTACKED, sometimes physically. The violation of artistic standards actually provoked RIOTS in the past. Now, the very thought of art (or any creative effort) starting a riot is practically laughable. You can BREAK ALL THE RULES of aesthetics that you like and hardly anyone will pay attention. All the so-called rebellious music has been CO-OPTED for commercials. All the radical styles of painting have been used in print advertisements. All the revolutionary authors have done product endorsements. And all of the cool distorted fonts have been imitated and abused by ad agencies. So - because virtually all art is eventually CHEWED UP AND SPIT OUT by the dominant culture, we must therefore create ILLEGAL ART (or art that explicitly, inherently encourages illegal acts) that can never be co-opted. McDonald's will never run a commercial showing graffiti artists DEFACING THEIR RESTAURANTS. The malls will never run billboards encouraging people to SHOPLIFT. Car manufacturers will never sponsor CAR-DEFACING CONTESTS. Alcohol companies will never put a brand name on MOLOTOV COCKTAILS. You may think that PROTEST AND REVOLT are not art, but they are. Walt Whitman's poems were illegal, Robert Mapplethorpe's photos were illegal, Karen Finley's performances were rejected, Dimanda Galas' music was banned, and William Burroughs' books were banned - all of this art was a revolt against the (aesthetic, moral, religious, political) standards of the time. Now there are no standards and anything goes. If art is to be a THREAT - if art is to CREATE CHANGE AND CONTROVERSY - then it must be illegal or incite illegal actions. "ART AS CRIME, CRIME AS ART" (Hakim Bey)

"I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the very highest respect for law."

Martin Luther King Jr.

Walt Whitman and William Burroughs did not break MY quill. Robert Mappelthorpe did not break MY camera.

Spend all of the time that you need finding your outlet. But, don't hurt someone who has no effect on the outcomes of your anger. Oh, and be willing to spend time in jail.

No Answers... There never is a Answer!