This racist tag was sprayed on a wall in Aberdeen in early June.
Can the City of Kamloops slap Canada Post with a fine?
That’s the question under investigation by bylaw services after complaints from the Kamloops Central Business Improvement Association (KCBIA) about graffiti on mailboxes.
KCBIA general manager Gay Pooler said she’s been tracking graffiti on downtown post boxes, arguing it isn’t being cleaned up in a timely fashion.
“I think Canada Post should be held to the same standards as my businesses,” Pooler said.
The city’s bylaws require property owners to remove graffiti in a timely manner or face a fine.
But, community safety manager Jon Wilson said, until recently, Canada Post boxes were the purview of the city’s graffiti task force, which ensured they would be cleaned up within a reasonable time frame.
Canada Post didn’t renew its contract with the task force and Wilson said the city is exploring next steps in the face of increased graffiti.
“It is on public land, so there is some obligation out there to maintain to a certain standard,” Wilson said.
Mayor Peter Milobar said he has tried to raise the issue with the postal service and was told residents need to call Canada Post’s customer-service line.
Once complaints are logged, the company claims it will remove graffiti within 48 hours.
“I told them they’re not, but they said they certainly are, you just have to keep phoning,” Milobar said.
A Canada Post spokesman gave KTW the same information.
Graffiti considered “hateful” is supposed to be cleaned up by a contractor within 24 hours, while other tags have a two-day cleanup window.
The spokesman was not able to identify who cleans up mail boxes in Kamloops now that the graffiti task force is off the job, but said Canada Post isn’t aware of any cleanup issues in Kamloops.
He did offer to make sure mailboxes have been cleaned if the KCBIA provides a list of addresses of problem sites.
1,000 square feet of tagging wiped out — per day
The head of Kamloops’ graffiti task force is calling it “the worst summer ever.”
Ronnie Bouvier said her team has cleaned up or painted over an average of 1,000 square feet of graffiti per day since the start of July, with one marathon day bringing 3,000 square feet of tags and racial slurs.
“We had to go at five in the morning to Riverside [Park] after Canada Day. We’ve never had to do that,” Bouvier told the city’s co-ordinated enforcement committee yesterday.
“Every new thing the city put up was hit. Lots of vulgarity, lots of racial — even if it’s spelled wrong, you know what the racial stuff is.”
Parks have been hit particularly badly in the last month, Bouvier said, with Riverside needing attention multiple times per week.
Some private strata development are also being hit with racial slurs and the task force had to repaint the Elks Lodge due to graffiti.
Bouvier said the task force is looking at a fundraising campaign to purchase a walnut blaster, an environmentally friendly cleaning tool that costs about $20,000, to give it a new edge against the spray paint.
“It’s an ideal machine,” she said.
“It’s like using a vacuum.”
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