NEWS RELEASE
16 March 2012

Vandals ‘volunteered’ to paint over graffiti

Two teenage boys recently caught tagging by Police will be lending a hand to Wellington City Council’s anti-graffiti crew over the next few days.

The youths were caught vandalising property around the central city earlier this year. They are being dealt with by Police Youth Aid – and one result is that they are to put in some hours to help paint over graffiti in various parts of the city.

Wellington City Council’s CitiOperations Manager, Mike Mendonca, says the youths will be supervised by members of the Council’s graffiti clean-up staff. “They’ll find that they get to do a lot of remedial work in the company of our crew. There won’t be any down-time.”

Mr Mendonca says the Council always enthusiastically takes ‘volunteers’ sent by the Police to help paint over graffiti. “The help is always appreciated. It means our graffiti guys can take a bit of a breather during the day to concentrate on coaching They are very good and persistent coaches and they like providing feedback to vandals as they help them to clean up their mess.”

Wellington South Community Constable Dean Adams says tagging and other vandalism costs the Council and private property owners hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to clean up

“If people see anyone in the act of tagging or vandalising – call 111. We take it seriously – and if we catch the offenders then we can put them to work to fix their damage.”

ENDS

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