Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe drives around with bolt cutters to cut it down from park fences. Its appearance on construction scaffoldings throughout the city led to a billboard-sized controversy. And Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro once told the Staten Island Advance, “It’s like graffiti, almost. This is environmental graffiti.”
With all this opposition, is illegal advertising going to face one of those quality of life crackdowns that graffiti would face? Maybe somebody will amend the state bill that seeks to turn graffiti into a felony to include illegal advertisers?
Probably not.
In fact, the Anti-Advertising Agency points out that the Police Department’s vandal squad doesn’t even arrest such ad perps. Of the nearly 3,800 arrests they made in 2007, none of those arrests were for illegal advertising, the activist group points out. (Click here to see Graffitistat complaints broken down by borough.)
“Youd think assaulting journalists might be enough for the vandal squad to take notice, but not yet,” writes Steve Lambert, the group’s founder.
While some debate whether graffiti is an art or a crime, Gawker says being anti-advertising is just plain anti-American.