San Jose is about to take a more aggressive approach to battle graffiti taggers who have now hit City Hall four times in four weeks. Robert Handa reports.
San Jose is about to take a more aggressive approach to battle graffiti taggers who have now hit City Hall four times in four weeks.
The city plans to employ around-the-clock security at City Hall after the rash of vandalism. The 24/7 security will also be designed to help neighboring businesses, who have also been plagued with graffiti.
"I'm glad they're doing something," neighbor Lou Smith said. "I know there's a tight budget, but there are ways of combating this."
Smith is helping clean graffiti off the popular 4th Street Pizza restaurant and other businesses that ended up being part of a trail of vandalism that led to City Hall.
Surveillance video from Monday night shows a group of people tagging a restaurant's wall. Video shows the group starting with a garbage can and then worked their way down a 100-foot stretch with cans of black spray paint. The vandalism happened within five minutes.
Late Monday's vandalism is the latest in a series of incidents. Last week, a group of eight taggers were caught on surveillance video vandalizing City Hall.
Mayor Sam Liccardo said the added security should benefit City Hall and neighboring businesses. He promises to reveal a new anti-graffiti plan soon.
"There are things we can do, probably technology that can help, and we're going to be talking about that quite a bit in the next few weeks," Liccardo said. "We hope to have a significant announcement this month."
Smith said the city needs to make graffiti a priority.
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"It's frustrating," he said. "Because as far as I'm concerned, it's vandalism."
Lou Smith is helping out the popular 4th Street Pizza restaurant
NBC Bay Area's LiLi Tan contributed to this report.
