Victoria council approves exploring restrictions on youths buying spray paint

During this week’s committee of the whole meeting, Victoria Councillor Stephen Hammond proposed a motion that seeks to deter youth from buying spray paint to avoid associated graffiti cleanup costs. 

Councillor Hammond’s motion stated that graffiti vandalism creates costs and negative impacts for residents, businesses, property owners and the City of Victoria. 

“The City of Victoria is constantly working to remove graffiti and yet it’s never enough and the costs are staggering,” he wrote.

“And when graffiti attacks or targets particular groups of people, City staff and others respond as quickly as possible, however even when the response is quick, the harm has already been done.”

Hammond broke down budgetary costs the city faces in removing graffiti, which rose from $429,000 to $472,000 between 2023 and 2025 across all associated City departments. 

He added that other City-run programs contribute a further $100,000 to removing graffiti and those costs don’t take into account what the Downtown Victoria Business Association pays for in their graffiti removal endeavours. 

“With all these expenses, the City must try something, almost anything, to come to a better result,” wrote Hammond. 

He noted that in Winnipeg the sale of spray paint to people under 18-years-old is prohibited, and in London, Ontario, “graffiti implements,” such as spray paint, broad-tipped markers, paint pens, glass-cutting tools and glass-etching tools are regulated. 

Councillor Hammond alleged in his motion that spray paint theft may be a problem in Victoria, which leads to graffiti around town, and tried to theorize how to prevent minors specifically from committing graffiti vandalism. 

When it comes to buying spray paint online, he stated that a youth with vandalism in mind may be deterred from purchasing the paint if they have to pay for it with their parents’ credit cards or have it delivered to their family home.

“Unless the youth is involved with some legitimate art or project, there’s got to be many parents who will be asking questions about their child needing spray paint,” Hammond wrote. 

Because of this, Hammond’s motion primarily proposes having City staff explore options for implementing deterrents for youth looking to buy spray paint. 

However, he did note that not all graffiti vandalism is committed by youth. 

“Knowing some young people get into ‘mischief’ until they become more mature, an age restriction will make it tougher for a young person to get into the destruction of graffiti or if they are already into it, they will have a harder time continuing it,” reads Hammond’s motion. 

Ultimately, Hammond’s motion sought staff to explore options for retail sale restrictions for minors, implementing secure storage or staff-access-only requirements for spray paint, point-of-sale signage and/or retailer education from the City, but include reasonable exemptions for parents or guardians, schools, employers, trades, artists and other legitimate uses.

He would also have City staff look into enforcement options, consultation with affected retailers and any associated organizations as staff sees fit, if the City has the legal authority to implement these deterrents and the cost and impact breakdown associated with all these matters. 

Council debated the matter on Thursday, May 21st. 

Councillors Marg Gardiner and Chris Coleman spoke in support of the motion. They stated that the issue of graffiti and vandalism have always been a problem and that if there were some way the City could lessen the expenses to taxpayers and private property owners, they would be interested in seeing what options were available. 

Councillor Matt Dell spoke to the matter of honing in on Victoria’s youth in the motion. 

“The part about the minors was interesting, because I know often we like to blame things on minors,” he said. 

“I don’t know if it’s always true, and I know that a lot of the actual mural artists, many of them often come from the graffiti world and many of the mural artists are definitely not minors.”

He asked Hammond whether there was any data to support the notion that it is youth who are committing graffiti vandalism. 

Hammond replied that he wasn’t interested in singling out a group, but said that it was one element. 

“I remember when I was young doing stupid things and after several decades I got smarter,” said Hammond. 

“The vast majority of kids and the vast majority of adults don’t do this, but it’s just to say where this has been done, it actually helps out, then we can go with that.”

Councillor Susan Kim spoke in support of the motion, but noted that many people who do graffiti may be looking for a way to express themselves, where they are feeling prohibited from doing so by other means. 

Following Kim’s sentiment, Councillor Caradonna stated he agreed graffiti is a problem, but was unsure if using City staff’s time on this endeavour was worth the cause. 

“I’m a little bit uncertain about how this would solve the problem,” said Caradonna. “As stated in the motions backgrounder, people can still buy spray paint in neighbouring jurisdictions if we somehow regulate it, they could buy it online.”

“I’m also not convinced that minors are the issue here—we’ve been presented with zero evidence that minors are in fact committing these vandalistic crimes.”

City staff noted their workload is already quite large, and that looking into the constitutional side of the matter would be a challenge. 

Councillor Dave Thompson said he would be interested to learn more about if the measures outlined in the motion would make a difference. 

Following councillors’ comments, the motion was passed by a 6-2 vote. Councillors Caradonna and Dell voted against the motion. Councillor Krista Loughton was absent for the vote.