Graffiti has impact on Moses Lake food bank's bottom line

MOSES LAKE — Graffiti might be one of those crimes that doesn’t hurt anybody. Well, maybe not so much – just ask the operators of the Moses Lake Food Bank.

The food bank has two storage facilities, one just down the street from its distribution center on Marina Drive, the other on property owned by the food bank on Grape Drive. In the last 10 days, those facilities have been vandalized by graffiti “half a dozen times,” said food bank director Peny Archer.

The Grape Drive facility has been particularly hard-hit. “We’re getting vandalized more and more often out there.” Vandals targeted the building Friday and Saturday nights.

Moses Lake regulations require homeowners to wash off or paint over graffiti, and property owners who don’t are subject to fines. But cleaning up requires paint or paint thinners or cleaning chemicals, brushes, gloves – and labor. Volunteers usually supply the labor, but the supplies cost money.

And that is money that can’t go to more important things, Archer said. “If we have to buy (cleaning supplies), we can’t buy food. It’s a waste of money.”

Sometimes the labor is provided by people who have been sentenced to community service, and some of those youths were convicted of vandalism related to graffiti. Some of the young people Archer has supervised were surprised to discover the landowners were responsible for cleaning up the damage, she said - they thought it was the responsibility of the city.

It’s not. “We’re cleaning up their mess,” Archer said, and at the food bank’s expense. “It’s hundreds and hundreds of dollars, because we have to keep doing it.” The volunteer hours required for graffiti cleanup could be put to better use packing and distributing food, she said. “It’s frustrating.”

“In the last month or so we’ve seen kind of an upspike in graffiti,” said Moses Lake Police Chief Kevin Fuhr. Some neighborhoods are more likely to be targets than others, he said, and graffiti has been a recurring problem on that part of Grape Drive.

Archer said people who see vandals in the act - or just see the graffiti – should contact the police. In her experience the police responded when called, she said.

Fuhr said video cameras are an effective tool to help find and prosecute crimes like graffiti. “The video really helps us out,” he said. He cited a recent case where a thief stole a package from a residence – and his car and the entire crime was recorded with a video camera at the residence.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at education@columbiabasinherald.com.