You have all completely missed the point of my letter (re: Grafitti paint overs are ugly April 14/2011).
Obviously nobody fully read and understood it or they would know that I am in no way favoring or defending graffiti at all. I am not a teenager, and I do not vandalize anything anywhere. Thank you for bringing to my attention all of the programs the city provides. However I was not talking about the City of Trail’s lack of anything.
What I was talking about is that the way the graffiti has been simply covered up down at Gyro and other places around town in my personal opinion looks terrible. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and I decided to voice mine but didn’t realize how much of a hornets nest it would stir up.
There are environmentally friendly ways to wash the graffiti off the rocks at Gyro so why not remove it instead of covering it up with paint? I never said Trail is a terrible place to live, and that the City of Trail does nothing to make this place beautiful.
And I certainly did not claim to be the voice of all the youth in Trail and I don’t appreciate getting words put in my mouth or being demonized for having an opposing opinion of what looks good when it comes to trying to paint a rock to look like a rock or layers upon layers of paint all around town.
Not one kid I know would take the time cover up a personal attack with a paint brush or roller and a can of paint, because if they were seen anywhere with these supplies they’d be stopped and questioned like they were vandals. Nine times out of 10 they’ll just spray paint over it and the other one time they’ll just leave it there. So you can’t put the double blame on the kids for how it looks at Gyro.
My opinion is a personal one, but I have more than a few friends who think the same way. Yes a lot of the youth of Trail are responsible, smart, and outgoing kids, and that’s great I never said that those kids don’t exist in Trail but obviously these kids are not the ones causing the problems we’re talking about and it is completely inappropriate to label these kids who graffiti as future prison inmates!
That is part of the problem and probably the reason why they do it, because everyone labels most of them as common thugs without a future when they’re most likely just bored and tired of being treated like that.
“Just because I can’t afford to play hockey doesn’t mean I don’t exist” is something I’ve heard teenagers around Trail say since I was in high school 10 years ago and was not meant to be taken so literally.
The kids that do need help and guidance are probably unaware of these funding programs that are available for them, or maybe they simply don’t care because they are not interested in any of the programs they can get funded to do.
And no I don’t think a skate park will abolish graffiti, you’re always going to have problems with that anywhere. But since skateboarding is banned and frowned upon just about everywhere in Trail and people who like to do it get in trouble everywhere they go for doing what they like to do, wouldn’t a solution be to give these kids and young adults a place where they can get exercise and enjoy themselves instead of hanging out on the street?
What I have been trying to get across is that simply painting over these graffiti drawings, whoever it may be, looks terrible.
So Graffiti Grannies if some of the covers I am talking about weren’t you then I guess I apologize.
But I have seen some of your work that I think looks like a different form of vandalism.
I think a better example to set would be to remove the offensive graffiti instead of just quickly covering it up and I have the right to have that opinion.
Cassandra Reed
Trail