Graffiti-riddled eyesore ignored
LONGTIME N.D.G. BUSINESS OWNER threatened with $1,400 fine but no warnings were issued to owners of burned hulk of motel
Côte-des-Neiges–NotreDame-de-Grâce is cracking down on graffiti, sending warnings to property owners like Lyon Kunin, whose Décarie Blvd. hobby shop opened in 1942.
But the borough has not issued any warnings to the owners of what is probably the most graffiti-covered building in N.D.G.—the abandoned Motel Raphael. That ramshackle, fire-ravaged eyesore is the first things drivers see when arriving in N.D.G. via Highway 20.
“It’s very unfair,” Kunin said. “You’re singling out one group, one person, and forcing them to do things.”
Kunin spent $800 this year washing off and painting over graffiti after receiving a notice that he had contravened a bylaw the borough began applying in April.
“No sooner had I taken it off than it was back again,” Kunin said of the graffiti. “Then came a second warning” about new graffiti — and some of what was left after the first graffiti removal.
Several years ago, the city paid for a mural on Kunin’s wall to discourage graffiti. Kunin said he left that mural alone when the graffiti was removed. But the city says some of what Kunin thinks is mural is actually graffiti.
Now, Kunin is resisting another cleanup despite the prospect of a $1,400 fine.
“You’re punishing a victim for being a victim,” Kunin said of the bylaw. “It’s not like I asked anybody or permitted anybody to spray the graffiti on my building and here they are targeting me.”
There’s an alley behind Kunin’s building, which is just north of Côte St. Luc Rd. “Down the lane, every garage door is covered in graffiti and they don’t have to remove it. Why? Because they’re not 300 square metres” and so are exempt from the bylaw.
“I’m the only building in the back that has to remove it and I become the wallboard for the next graffiti because it’s the only place where they’re going to have room.”
The borough sent 228 graffiti warnings between April and October, a spokesperson said. The bylaw, aimed at large residential and commercial buildings, calls for fines of $350 to $4,000. So far, no fines have been issued.
Susan Clarke, the city councillor spearheading the antigraffiti effort, said 85 per cent of those who received warnings removed the graffiti. “It’s up to the bureaucracy” to decide if and when the other 15 per cent of targeted property owners are fined.
The borough decided to initially focus on commercial strips hard hit by graffiti, areas where graffiti was “dragging streets down in terms of look and feel and comfort,” Clarke said.
“It has been proven that if you regularly remove and keep the tags away, you become less of a target. That is the entire intention of the bylaw.” The aim is not to punish building owners but to encourage them to clean their properties, she added.
Clarke said vandals are also targeted. Last year, the borough sent bills to 15 people caught painting graffiti. Some received several bills. She could not say how much was collected in fines.
She said Kunin might be able to plant prickly rose bushes along walls to discourage taggers — an idea Kunin has ruled out since the graffiti is along a wall in a paved parking lot and a paved alley. Kunin also set up cameras to catch vandals, to no avail.
Clarke said she plans to meet Kunin this week to discuss his case. Asked about the Motel Raphael, she said she will ask the borough’s graffiti inspector to take a look at the structure, which is in her electoral district.
“It’s an eyesore and I wish it would just be down,” she said. But the city can’t compel the owner to demolish it unless the fire department deems it a safety hazard, she noted.
The company that owns the former motel last year told The Gazette it planned to demolish the structure after negotiations with the borough about a plan to replace it with a condo complex.