Editorial: Time for us all to target taggers

Is it just me or has there been an increase in graffiti in Rotorua in recent weeks?

Driving through our beautiful city and seeing property covered in tags is pretty disgusting.

A family member recently told me of the horror they felt driving up Sunset Rd and seeing endless tags on power boxes, fences, shop walls, letter boxes and poles. Someone had really felt the need to make a complete mess of things.

What made it even worse, the same tagger had taken to a 40-seater bus parked on the side of the road. The graffiti was apparently sprayed from one end of the bus to the other. Imagine how much that would have cost the poor owner to clean up.

Local personality Mike Baird is on a mission to clean up Rotorua streets by starting up a tagging patrol.

He wants to call it RVPs, standing for Rotorua Vandal Patrols. He says if he gets enough volunteers, they can patrol Rotorua streets on a shift basis and be the eyes and ears for the police to prevent tagging.

Rotorua police say graffiti is a problem for most communities in New Zealand and Rotorua is no different. That is true. There are many places in New Zealand - and the rest of the world for that matter - that are much worse. Have you ever been to Los Angeles? The graffiti there is mind blowing.

South Auckland would have to take the dubious honour of being among the worst places in New Zealand for graffiti.

Let's nip this trend locally in the bud now and get behind Mr Baird.

If you're not able to donate your time to his cause, try to do more on a personal level to stop tagging.

If you work in a shop, be careful who you sell spray cans to. If you are out and about and see something suspicious, ring the police - or at least make those acting suspiciously realise they have been seen.

If you are a parent of teens, know where your children are and ask questions if you suspect they are tagging.

Rotorua is way too cool of a city to let ugly tags ruin our reputation.