EPHRATA — A proposed change to a Grant County ordinance carries a 30-day minimum sentence for people caught tagging.

The Grant County commissioners are holding a public hearing on the amendment to its graffiti laws at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 3, in the commissioner’s hearing room at the Grant County Courthouse.

The addition allows the prosecutor’s office to charge people for using spray paint, “to knowingly and, or maliciously cause physical damage to the property of another, under circumstances not amounting to malicious mischief in the first or second degree.”

A person guilty of tagging faces a jail term between 30 days and a year. The defendant can convert the sentence to community service with eight hours assigned for each day converted.

The sentence could be added to any other crimes a person is convicted of.

Graffiti is a growing problem in the county, Prosecutor Angus Lee stated, and the change creates a mandatory sentence for taggers. The proposal is aimed at decreasing the amount of graffiti with the goal of decreasing crime.

“In fact studies have shown that a decrease in graffiti will lead to an overall decrease in crime. That is why one of the first things that New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani did when he cleaned up New York was get rid of graffiti throughout the city while cracking down hard on low-level offenders,” he stated.

The new law won’t require the prosecutor’s office to add personnel, since graffiti is already a crime, but it does create a mandatory penalty, Lee stated.

“The current malicious mischief law is very broad and includes a wide variety of criminal conduct other than tagging,” he stated. “Currently, malicious mischief also has no mandatory jail time, even for the felony-level offense and regardless of the amount of damage caused. This new law is designed specifically to target and deter the persons who tag, because of the overall negative effect they are having on our community.”

Commissioners Richard Stevens and Carolann Swartz said the proposal is getting praise from people calling in to the office.

One of the people praising the amendment is Carl Highland, the 98851 neighborhood watch coordinator. In a letter to the Grant County commissioners, he wrote neighborhood watch meeting attendees unanimously supported the 30 day minimum sentence.

“The statement is typically individuals who have been caught tagging have not just done it once,” he said. “The cost to the community and to the homeowners is tremendous. People shouldn’t have to worry about repainting their garages because some guy who thinks he’s a big-to-do is out there spray-painting with a $3 can of paint.”

He wants to see an additional 60 days of community service added to the sentence, saying the combination of jail time and community service is likely to deter more taggers.

“We found that rapidly painting out graffiti eventually frustrates and discourages those that did the tagging. But in the meantime, new taggers take up the spray can and start anew. Individuals so inclined to tag can be discouraged knowing their activities carry some serious ‘smack’. It’s the first step in the right direction to reverse the growing gang activity in Grant County,” Highland wrote.