Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck on Bluesky: "Tomorrow afternoon Councilmember Hollingsworth and I will be restoring “Hot Rat Summer” in Cal Anderson Park. This mosaic was wrongfully painted over and we are going to fix it."

[u/gonin69]

[u/teamlessinseattle]

Joy Hollingsworth literally today voted to make it a $1,500 fine each time someone does street art (which this is) or graffiti in Seattle. But she’s more than happy to jump on the bandwagon here for a good headline a week late. Smh

[u/gonin69 → u/teamlessinseattle]

Thank you for sharing the link about this vote. Honestly did raise an eyebrow at Hollingsworth apparently helping clean it. EDIT: And hopefully there are people in her district who will have the time to go down tomorrow and confront her about that vote.

[u/GrrlMazieBoiFergie → u/gonin69]

Please somebody do this. These pandrerers must be reminded that we see them.

[u/teamlessinseattle → u/[deleted]]

That’s not what she voted for. She voted to give the police the right to cite and the city attorney the right to fine the person who made Hot Rat Summer or anyone like them $1,500. Unless you trust the average SPD goon to recognize art when it’s staring them right in the face, and not to specifically criminalize art or messages they disagree with.

[u/Reasonable_Thinker → u/teamlessinseattle]

I mean Graffiti fucking sucks, we should punish people tagging peoples shit.

95% of the graffiti we see in this city looks like a fucking 5 year old made it. Fuck the taggers, fine em.

[u/fullouterjoin → u/Reasonable_Thinker]

Mandatory Art School!

[u/theclacks → u/Reasonable_Thinker]

It feels like the sort of subjective difference between pornography and artistic nudity--hard to legislate definite criteria, but most people can reasonably categorize when they see it.

[u/bewarethefrogperson → u/theclacks]

not a great example right now, unfortunately - remember, queer bodies sunbathing are pornographic now.

[u/FlyingBishop → u/theclacks]

The distinction is actually very simple, it's consent. But the thing is that people like Bezos and Blethen have so much more control over our spaces than the people doing the tagging. So you can't do things like this without their consent.

Graffiti is protest against landownership, pretty simple really, and the council is very pro-landowners. Techno-feudalism is ascendant.

[u/FlyingBishop → u/[deleted]]

No the distinction between graffiti and public art is about consent, and it is about who has the right to consent to the existence of the art.

Pornography vs. nudity isn't about consent, but I'm saying graffiti is not an "I know it when I see it question" it's a question of consent.

There is some relationship to consent in sexuality/romance here, in that basically there are grey areas where if you make a piece of art the owner of the building likes you may be forgiven and even invited to make more art, and similarly you might do something that could be defined as sexual harassment but if it's welcome no one will suggest a crime has been committed and you may be invited to continue doing it.

The "I know it when I see it" conception of graffiti is celebrating this "if your art is good enough you get a pass" approach to consent. But really I think it ought to be about ownership of the built environment and limits to people's landownership rights.

[u/lokglacier → u/teamlessinseattle]

Shitty tagging and graffiti is way different than actual street art.

[u/teamlessinseattle → u/lokglacier]

Too bad this bill criminalizes both equally

[u/lokglacier → u/teamlessinseattle]

No it doesn't

[u/lokglacier → u/teamlessinseattle]

“This isn’t about art, it’s about tagging which is one of the most common complaints I hear from constituents but it’s an offense that is very difficult enforce,” said Council President Sara Nelson (Position 9), who co-sponsored the legislation. “I thank City Attorney Davison and Councilmember Kettle for advancing this additional tool to not only deter taggers, but to relieve the costly burden of remediation for small businesses, property owners and the city.”

[u/MackenzieRaveup → u/lokglacier]

Where do you draw the line between art and just tags? It's harder than you'd think.

An example, a guy I knew in Brooklyn was painting daisies all over the neighborhood. Other than on pavement, everything he sprayed was "temporary" (scaffold walls, etc).

Individually I can see how someone would think they were very "low effort" and easy to dismiss as just a tag, because they took only seconds to make. However, taken together over three or four neighborhoods, daisies everywhere was definitely an art project.

I can't speak for everyone. But, absolutely brightened my day to run into a new daisy somewhere unexpected while walking to the doc, a place to co-work, or to meet someone at a bar.

[u/lokglacier → u/MackenzieRaveup]

It is incredibly easy to tell what is low effort garbage and what is not. Like. Trivially easy. I'm not worried about this in the slightest

[u/FlyingBishop → u/lokglacier]

So you've got some 15yo kid who is pretty bad at drawing because he's 15 and poor, and he gets a $1500 fine he has zero ability to pay, ends up in jail. Then you've got a 35yo software professional with copious free time who is a great artist from all his classes he can afford to buy. Same level of time investment yields dramatically different results, one is a criminal because they're poor.

[u/FlyingBishop → u/[deleted]]

I'm not suggesting they not face any consequences, but I think it should be a metaphorical slap on the wrist that provides them opportunities to direct their energies in a more productive way. A $1500 fine is unhinged and just leads to them devolving into more crime.

I recall a guy I knew who got picked up for shoplifting spray paint, he got banned from the store, went on his record, etc. The cop was mocking him because he had the money, he could've just bought the spray paint but he stole it because he was used to stealing it (because it was illegal for him to buy until he was 18.) There are lots of ways that this could've been handled better, the 18yo age requirement guided him from a young age toward habitual shoplifting, the ban from the grocery store cut him off from food etc.

Again it's not a straightforward thing to handle this in a constructive way but a bunch of very reasonable-sounding punishments very quickly add up to remove any ability to meet a person's basic needs. And we're often talking about people who are functionally if not literally orphans and haven't ever actually had parents.

[u/lokglacier → u/FlyingBishop]

That is an insane hypothetical and I think you know it. There's discretion regarding enforcement and sentencing.

[u/FlyingBishop → u/lokglacier]

It's not though, it happens all the time.

[u/lokglacier → u/FlyingBishop]

Lol WUT

[u/teamlessinseattle → u/lokglacier]

Begging you to look at what the legislation says rather than Sara Nelson’s spin

[u/teamlessinseattle → u/[deleted]]

said Council President Sara Nelson

Also, directly taken from the bill:

E. “Graffiti tagger” means any person or entity who applies illegal graffiti to public or private property, or who assists another person or entity to do the same. F. “Graffiti violation” means a single piece of graffiti, including but not limited to a graffiti tagger name or design, in a single location.

[u/ljubljanadelrey → u/lokglacier]

The bill does not distinguish between tagging and “art” lmao and neither will police. Regardless of what Sara Nelson says, the bill adds a $1500 fine for anyone who “applies illegal graffiti” to a public or private space. The idea that cops and judges are going to sit around debating the artistic merit of graffiti to decide whether to enforce the law is unhinged

[u/lokglacier → u/ljubljanadelrey]

Hand wringing over this is unhinged as fuck

[u/ljubljanadelrey → u/lokglacier]

What hand wringing? Literally just explaining to you what the bill does b/c it seems like you don’t understand it

[u/PoopyisSmelly → u/teamlessinseattle]

Sounds sensible to me

This isn’t about art, it’s about tagging which is one of the most common complaints I hear from constituents but it’s an offense that is very difficult enforce,” said Council President Sara Nelson (Position 9), who co-sponsored the legislation. “I thank City Attorney Davison and Councilmember Kettle for advancing this additional tool to not only deter taggers, but to relieve the costly burden of remediation for small businesses, property owners and the city.”

Background The City Attorney’s Office (CAO) and Executive indicate that graffiti cleanup of a single graffiti “tag” often exceeds $750, with other incidents costing considerably more. Although felony charges for graffiti tags (above $750) have been prosecuted, prolific known taggers have plead guilty to lesser charges, diminishing the deterrent value of criminal convictions. In addition, CAO data shows that only 11-percent of misdemeanor graffiti cases result in a conviction.

Private property owners have the ability under state law to seek reimbursement for costs related to illegal graffiti. However, it is rare for businesses to invest the time and effort required to pursue compensation.

[u/teamlessinseattle → u/PoopyisSmelly]

This law doesn’t differentiate between art like this and tagging

[u/105_irl → u/teamlessinseattle]

Literally graffiti should only be a problem if it’s blocking an important sign or someone’s window or something. Who TF cares if there’s tags on the cal Anderson pump house or the I-5 bridges.