Graffiti in Rotorua on the rise as spray can-wielding taggers target the city

Spray-can scoundrels have been busy painting Rotorua town, with several parts of the CBD targeted and graffiti reports more than doubled.

A number of streets in the city now bear the mark of taggers’ work and the company paid to clean it up says the issue is getting worse.

Tauranga-based Graffiti Busters works to remove tagging across the Bay of Plenty and Waikato.

Director Anthony Nel said it was subcontracted by Rotorua Lakes Council’s Infracore and had been working in Rotorua for almost five months.

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Nel said he was sending team members to Rotorua three times a week at the moment, sometimes in pairs to tackle larger-scale defacing.

While he said they were on top of the larger tags, the issue, on the whole, was growing – both in Rotorua and Tauranga.

A lot of what he saw were gang-related messages, which he assumed were about protecting territories.

Spray paint was often the tool of choice, but younger taggers opted for felt tip and marker pens as accessing the spray paint was more difficult.

Rotorua Lakes Council community wellbeing deputy chief executive Anaru Pewhairangi said graffiti impacted negatively on how a place looked and, in turn, how people feel and so it dealt with it quickly, as did most businesses.

“Our public places and spaces are there for everyone to enjoy and vandalism and graffiti spoil this for everyone so it’s always really disappointing to see public buildings, playgrounds and other assets vandalised or tagged.”

He said the council worked with local groups and schools to create murals in areas potentially being targeted.

“It is a crime and where relevant we report graffiti to the police to be dealt with as a criminal matter. Graffiti reported to council is referred to our contractors to be cleaned up as quickly as possible.”

He said it could not precisely estimate in advance what graffiti removal would cost but cleaning it up was forecast to cost at least $49,000 annually.

“That’s operational budget we’d rather invest in positive improvements and proactive maintenance that adds value for our community but unfortunately, not everyone respects our people and our spaces.”

Graffiti was on the up, and the expected cost of clean-up this financial year, last July to this June, would be about $100,000.

Council received 407 reports of graffiti to date this financial year, up from 186 for the full 2021/22 financial year and 79 the previous year.

He encouraged people who saw vandalism or graffiti happening, to call 111 immediately to report it. If it has already occurred, either call or email the council.

Rotorua mayor Tania Tapsell said it was always concerning when graffiti happened, and it was hugely disappointing when the effort was put into “getting Rotorua looking great”.

There was not only a cost to getting it cleaned up, but it was damaging to the city’s reputation as well.

She said it was a great help for the council to be notified so it can be resolved.

A police spokesman said it had been getting very few complaints regarding graffiti in Rotorua.

“Tagging, graffiti, or defacing property is an act of intentional damage and is a criminal offence, if people wish to make a report, they can contact Police on 105.”

Alternatively, reports of graffiti and vandalism can also be passed on to the council.