Advocate

At Preserve Bisbee, we believe community involvement is the key to helping us implement a multi-pronged graffiti mitigation strategy to save our beautiful town.  We can't just sit around and accept the City of Bisbee's complacency in addressing the problem any longer.   Some of the most effective measures to help us reduce this crime can only be initiated, funded and put into action by our City Leaders.   We need your collective voices to help us rally support behind and advocate for these urgently needed initiatives.      

The City of Bisbee needs to remediate all graffiti on city owned property, especially the graffiti in the Mule Gulch Drainage Tunnel running along the South side of Tombstone Canyon and Main Street.  In its current state, it literally SCREAMS that the City of Bisbee could care less about maintaining the historic aesthetic of the town and that we welcome graffiti vandals with open arms.  

Security cameras are a proven method in both deterring crime and aiding in investigations. Just as we want to see our supporters install cameras on their private properties, it is equally as important for the City of Bisbee to install security cameras in the town's public spaces.  The Phoenix Police Department's highly successful "Virtual Blockwatch Program" integrates a registry of both public and private security cameras to use as an integral part of their Neighborhood Crime Prevention Strategy.  Eventually (yes, we can dream) we at Preserve Bisbee would love to see a similar partnership program developed for our town.  

Recent arrest data from 17 major cities shows that 50-70% of all street level graffiti is created by suburban adolescents, predominantly males, between the ages of 12 and 19.  Our informal data (from the hours of camera footage we have collected) from Old Bisbee's Entertainment district would appear to strongly correlate with this research.  

We recommend that the City of Bisbee initiate a curfew for Old Bisbee's Downtown Entertainment area similar to the one In Oklahoma City's Bricktown district:

In Oklahoma City's Bricktown Entertainment District, there's a curfew for unaccompanied minors, 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., seven days a week. The curfew applies to the Bricktown area and Lower Bricktown, all the way to the Oklahoma River. If a minor is found in Bricktown past 9 p.m. without an adult, they will be asked to leave. 

For years, cities like Chicago have had laws in place restricting the sale of spray paint within their city limits.  In addition to the damage caused by the tagging, there are both environmental and safety issues associated with the aerosol containers.  Cans are explosive, extremely flammable and may cause flash fire.  In addition,  hundreds of thousands of spray cans go to landfills and will never decompose. Research also shows the “DNA” of typical spray paint can cause impairments in memory, attention, problem solving and can cause many log term health problems.

We propose that the City of Bisbee puts similar restrictions on the sale of spray paint within Old Bisbee.  To our knowledge, currently there is only one store selling spray paint within the Old Bisbee Historic District.  

In Nevada, NRS 381.225 specifically addresses the defacing of historical sites and includes both man made sites (such as buildings) and natural sites (such as Indian caves).  It reads as follows:

It is unlawful for any person to commit vandalism upon any historic or prehistoric sites, natural monuments, speleological sites and objects of antiquity, or to write or paint or carve initials or words, or in any other way deface, any of those objects, Indian paintings or historic buildings.

The penalties associated with NRS 381.225 range from a civil fine of no more than $500 if the resulting damage is less than $25 to a Class C felony when damages exceed $5,000 or more. 

We need the City of Bisbee to come up with a similar ordinance to protect our historical architecture.  If the City won't address it, we will look to rally support for a similar statute at the state level.