The Board of Supervisors hereby finds and declares that:
(a) Graffiti is detrimental to the health, safety, and welfare of the community in that it promotes a perception in the community that the laws protecting public and private property can be disregarded with impunity. This perception fosters a sense of disrespect for the law that results in an increase in crime; degrades the community and leads to urban blight; is detrimental to property values, business opportunities, and the enjoyment of life; is inconsistent with the City's property maintenance goals and aesthetic standards; and results in additional graffiti and in other properties becoming the target of graffiti unless it is quickly removed from public and private property.
(b) Graffiti results in visual pollution and is hereby deemed a public nuisance. Graffiti must be abated as quickly as possible to avoid detrimental impacts on the City and its residents, and to prevent the further spread of graffiti.
(c) Graffiti is increasingly used by gangs to frighten residents of neighborhoods and instigate and escalate disputes with opposing gangs. Therefore, gang graffiti, in particular, exacerbates the degradation of San Francisco's quality of life. In order to alleviate this fear caused by gang graffiti, and to assist the partnership between the City and the neighborhoods in their mutual efforts to make streets safe, gang graffiti must be abated as quickly as possible.
(d) Graffiti also is used in guerilla marketing campaigns to promote or publicize, for commercial or non-commercial purposes, goods, products, and services in lieu of or to supplement conventional advertising techniques. This type of graffiti must be abated as quickly as possible to avoid detrimental impacts on the City and its residents, and to prevent the further spread of graffiti.
(e) It is the purpose of this Article 23 to provide a program for the removal of graffiti from walls, pavement, structures, and other improvements on both public and private property, including the public right-of-way.
(Added as Sec. 1301 by Ord. 29-94, App. 1/14/94; amended by Ord. 263-04, File No. 041150, App. 11/4/2004; redesignated and amended by Ord. 44-16
, File No. 160103, App. 4/8/2016, Eff. 5/8/2016)