China Overseas Chinese Network, October 6th. According to a comprehensive report by the Canadian "Sing Tao Daily", the problem of street graffiti in Vancouver has become more serious, causing the business community to bear additional costs during the epidemic. Among them, Chinatown merchants have to bear about 3,000 yuan per month ( Canadian dollars, the same below) cleaning the walls.
According to city government regulations, owners must remove graffiti within 10 days, otherwise the city can “do it for you” and clean up graffiti for merchants, but will hand over the bill to the owners.
The City of Vancouver stated that graffiti incidents have increased significantly since the start of the new crown pneumonia pandemic.
This has caused another financial blow to merchants under the epidemic.
The areas hardest hit by the graffiti incident include Chinatown, the eastern end of downtown Vancouver, and the Stakona area, but the city government stated that the problem is not limited to some areas but the whole city, so it is difficult to determine the actual number.
The city government continued that between March and August, about 2,300 merchants had to remove external graffiti, an increase of 67% compared to the same period last year.
This adds to the burden on enterprises.
In Chinatown, merchants have to pay up to 3,000 yuan a month to clean the external walls of graffiti.
The business promotion association in the area pointed out that before this became more popular, it would have to pay about 2,000 per month to clean the graffiti on the exterior wall, which is 1,000 yuan more.
When a merchant finds that the exterior wall of the store is graffiti, they must act quickly, because according to the Vancouver City Council, the owner needs to remove the graffiti within 10 days, otherwise the city will "do it for you" and clean up the graffiti, but the bill will be forwarded To merchants.
The association stated that while the city government did not hesitate to hold property owners accountable, businesses in the area felt that this issue was low on the list of priority items for city government leaders.
The association continued that this is a problem, but there is no accountability.
Even if a graffiti is caught, all the merchant can do is tell the graffiti not to do this again.
City Councillor Pete Fry thinks this problem may be difficult to solve.
He who lives in the Shidakong area said that in the past 7 months, he has witnessed an increase in graffiti activities.
He also said that the city government is unable to increase the police budget for prevention and may therefore have to consider more creative solutions.
Frye believes that perhaps the best option is that the city government considers certain areas to be banned from graffiti.
In addition, the Executive Director Theodora Lamb of the Starkona Business Promotion Association, which covers Starkona and the east end of downtown Vancouver, said that businesses in Starkona are increasingly frustrated with the graffiti problem.
As for why the situation of graffiti has increased sharply in recent months, it is said that this is related to the epidemic. Some people are out of work and feel angry, so graffiti vents.