Saturday night was the second time since the Great Highway closed that its concrete walls were defaced with graffiti, this time with misspelled messages of “gentriffy” and “Your bringing trouble.”  

Cars were permanently banned from the Great Highway on Friday, March 14, and it is well-documented that many Sunset District residents are pretty furious about this. Then the very first night the Great Highway was a car-free zone, vandals defaced a mural there with graffiti, in what sure appeared an attempt to express discontent with this new car-free arrangement.  

Now that those roads where cars used to drive have been permanently made into a park, SF Rec and Parks announced in a Monday afternoon statement that the walls of the new park have been vandalized and defaced again. According to that statement, the graffiti consisted of “slogans opposing the park,” which included “misspelled grievances such as ‘gentriffy’ and ‘Your bringing trouble….’”

Rec and Parks said in their statement that the spray-painted messages were “apparently left overnight” Saturday, and “were discovered Sunday morning.”

This graffiti was not on the same mural that was defaced the prior weekend. That 60‑foot mural entitled “A History of Play” (seen above) by artist Emily Fromm is located at the Great Highway and Judah Street. Whereas according to Rec and Parks, this graffiti was at “on the former Great Highway and surrounding areas near Noriega Street.”  

“People are loving the oceanfront park, and while there will always be a few outliers who choose to be destructive, we’re not going to let that get in the way of the community enjoying this space,” Friends of Ocean Beach Park president Lucas Lux said in the Rec and Parks announcement. “This weekend, thousands of people took advantage of the nice weather to use the park, even while it’s under construction. Destructive behavior by a few won’t get in the way of our work to make the coast enjoyable and accessible by all.”

The Rec and Parks statement added that “Rangers have increased their patrols” in the  areas affected by vandalism incidents.

Regardless of all this, the new park is still set to have its big public opening on Saturday, April 12, and we will soon know the name of the park. Aftre a naming contest, SF Rec and Parks has whittled the potential name down to 15 apparent finalists seen below.

Related: Mural at Great Highway Park Defaced Just After Highway Was Closed Permanently [SFist]

Image: @Boyddays via Twitter

The Sunset District did not exactly roll out the welcome mat for their new car-free Great Highway, as on the very first night of its new car-free status, a mural in the  park was vandalized in what may have been an act of protest.

After a years-long, contentious debate and SF voters approving the closure last November, the Great Highway was finally closed and made into a car-free park this past Friday. KQED reports the closure of the nearly 1.5-mile stretch of the highway between Sloat Boulevard and Lincoln Way officially happened at 5 am Friday. But not even 24 hours after the closure, the Chronicle reports that someone vandalized a new 60-foot mural that was painted in an area that is now slated to become a public park.  

The damage to the mural is seen above. The mural is located on Judah Street at Ocean Beach, and we cannot determine with certainty if this was an act of hostility by Sunset District opponents of closing the highway. But according to a press release from car-free advocates Friends of Ocean Beach Park, the mural’s artist Emily Fromm “has been verbally harassed multiple times, and another artist working on a similar project at Taraval has also reported experiencing repeated harassment from opponents of the park.”

The vandal (or vandals) even marked up the part of the mural that depicts the old amusement park Playland at the Beach. Who would deface Playland at the Beach???

"While I do not know why the mural was vandalized -- because the markings were random and unspecific -- it likely had something to do with the closure of the Great Highway, a divisive issue," Fromm said in an interview with KGO. "The artwork is intended as a gift for the neighborhood, regardless of that change. Vandalizing the artwork will have no impact on that voter-approved issue."

The Friends of Ocean Beach Park group sure suspects this was the work of car-free opponents, and maybe the Recall Joel Engardio crowd who are so infuriated with the Sunset District supervisor for supporting the measure. The photo above is undated, and it’s not clear exactly where this “Joel Lie$ #Recall” graffiti was sprayed, but Friends of Ocean Beach Park released this photo along with their press release denouncing the vandalism. They also included the image below, which is also undated, but part of what the group says is a pattern of vandalism going back years ever since the park was closed to cars at the start of the pandemic.

But KGO had a Sunday report that the mural is being fully restored, after a team of volunteers joined the artist Fromm on Sunday morning. The restoration is not yet fully complete, but there’s another volunteer session on Wednesday to complete the touch-up work.  

And as we mentioned last week, there is now a lawsuit to force cars back onto the highway, brought by various car-free opponents. That lawsuit was announced at a press conference last Tuesday, and Courthouse News was on the scene. Their photos show that cause is now basically now tied at the hip to the Recall Engardio campaign, and the press conference was contentious. A passerby flashed a thumbs-down gesture at the ralliers, and one pro-car protester responded by shouting, “A bike slut! We got a bike slut over there!”

According to Courthouse News, the so-called bike slut was “the driver of a black Subaru.”  

Related: Friday Is the Last Day for Cars on the Great Highway, But a New Lawsuit Hopes to Bring Cars Back [SFist]

Image: Friends of Ocean Beach Park

A 3 a.m. vandalism job on the Valencia Street ice cream shop Smitten left windows broken and “Free Palestine” graffiti on the storefront, and it may not be a coincidence that the store is Jewish-owned.

Another local reaction to the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict has left a Valencia Street ice cream shop boarded up, and possibly closed indefinitely. Mission Local reports that the Jewish-owned ice creamery Smitten was vandalized and tagged with graffiti early Wednesday morning, and one front window was prominently tagged with the words “FREE PALESTIEN” (sic).

When SFist went by at 1:45 Tuesday, we found all the windows of the shop boarded up. The store usually opens at 2 p.m., and it’s unclear whether the shop will reopen Wednesday. Mission Local’s report from Wednesday morning describes a storefront “smashed to pieces,” whose “windows and two doors were covered in plastic, and shards of glass were visible on the pavement, as well as inside the shop.”

The parklet outside Smitten was not affected or damaged, and we did not observe any notable vandalism to any adjacent Valencia and 20th street storefronts.

Mission Local got a statement from SFPD, who say they were alerted by a 2:49 a.m. alarm activation, and sent officers to the scene. “When they met with the victim, they were able to determine that the business had been vandalized for unknown reasons.”

It’s not immediately clear whether the vandalism will be considered or investigated as a hate crime. Per Mission Local, Smitten founder Robyn Sue Fisher is Jewish, though it may be purely coincidental that this business was targeted with said vandalism and graffiti.

Related: Anti-Jewish Graffiti Appears on Market Street Following Pro-Palestinian March [SFist]

Image: Joe Kukura, SFist

Following a rally and march Saturday in support of the Palestinian people, which brought thousands of activists marching up San Francisco's Market Street, some anti-Jewish and anti-Israel graffiti was found on windows along the street.

Saturday's march was the largest demonstration so far in the Bay Area amid the latest outbreak of Arab-Jewish violence in the Middle East. It drew thousands, and was one of numerous similar demonstrations that same day around the U.S., in support of peace and in protest of the violent retaliation that's ongoing by Israel in Gaza, in response to the surprise attacks on civilians in Israel by Hamas a week earlier.

During that protest, graffiti appeared on the windows of two banks in the downtown area. As documented by the Jewish Community Relations Council, the messages read "Death to Zionism," "Kill a Settler," and "Death 2 Israel."

"We are deeply disturbed by graffiti along Market Street reading after yesterday's pro-Palestinian rally in San Francisco," said JCRC Bay Area in a tweet Sunday. "We have been in touch with city leaders and [the SFPD] to investigate this crime."

SF Mayor London Breed denounced the graffiti in a tweet, noting that the police were still investigating and that Public Works had quickly gotten the graffiti cleaned up.

"I support peaceful protests but on Saturday protestors vandalized buildings with disgusting calls to violence," Breed said.

SF District Attorney Brooke Jenkins went further in a now-deleted tweeted referring to the protest march as being "pro-Hamas." As the Chronicle reports, Jenkins denounced the graffiti as well, blaming it on the "All Out for Gaza" protest.

Wassim Hage, outreach coordinator for the Arab Resource and Organizing Center in San Francisco, has now called for public censure of Jenkins, calling the tweet, "deliberately and recklessly incorrect."

The past week featured a number of instances of progressive leaders trying to the toe the line of expressing support for Palestinians while denouncing the actions of Hamas, and showing sympathy and support for Israel, and calling for peace on both sides.

SF Supervisor Dean Preston was called out last week for not fully denouncing the violence inflicted on Israeli civilians in an initial statement, which he ultimately walked back a bit.

On Sunday, a smaller demonstration formed in Civic Center Plaza of supporters of Israel. KTVU had the report below.

There was also a pro-Palestinian protest in downtown San Jose.

Related: Large Pro-Palestinian Rally Outside Israeli Consulate In San Francisco Met With Counter-Protest

What’s become a Pride Weekend tradition returned with the annual tagging of the former Stud, but this weekend’s taggery spready to a half-dozen adjacent buildings, and four cars were thoroughly vandalized.

Warning: The images in this post contain a little profanity here and there.

It almost seemed poetic justice that the former home of now-shuttered The Stud, once the oldest continuously operating LGBTQ bar in San Francisco, now gets ruthlessly tagged every year on Pride Weekend. After all, the building’s new owner painted over the murals by queer artists in 2020, so maybe all’s fair in love and painting over other people’s shit?

But this year’s Pride Weekend graffiti proceedings took an unfair and much darker turn. KGO reports that vandals also trashed four cars this year while spraypainting the graffiti, demolishing windshields and leaving giant cratered dents on the roofs of the cars. Security footage from one of the cars confirms that this destruction occurred simultaneous to the graffiti session.

"This one was worse [than previous years],” nearby business owner Frank Skubal told KGO. “The tagging was comparable but the fact that they demolished several cars' windshields and hoods, what you have is completely undriveable."

And it’s pretty clear the tagging is recent, with timely messages like “Avenge Banko,” “Fuck DeSantis,” and “Kill Elon Musk.”

Skubal notes that he’s pretty astounded at the lax law enforcement response, given the magnitude of damage and how long this activity was allowed to go on Saturday night.

"The bigger concern also is how could they get away with this? This didn't happen in five minutes," he told KGO.

KGO also adds that one individual whose car was vandalized “lives in San Francisco but was planning to drive his car home to Canada in the next week or two. Now he can't because his car is undrivable due to the condition it's in.”

This annual unsanctioned graffiti riot spread much further to adjacent buildings than it did in previous years, and some jokers climbed fire escapes to take their tagging to a second level.

The violent turn of the annual Pride Weekend tagging of The Stud presents this yearly act of civil disobedience in a much different light. And it sure can’t be a welcome development for whatever Redfin realtor is running this open house down the alley.

Related: The Stud’s Former Home Got Thoroughly Tagged On Pride Weekend, and Then Countertagged On Top of That [SFist]

Images: Joe Kukura, SFist

In a long-overdue move, SF Public Works will stop charging small businesses and building owners for having graffiti on their buildings, and instead come out and clean off the tagging for free.

Ask any small business or building owner what the most back-asswards thing about running a San Francisco storefront is, and they’ll probably respond how when a small business gets tagged, vandalized or graffitied, the property owner is on the hook for the fines. This was particularly problematic during the vandalism wave of the pandemic, and while Supervisor Hillary Ronen did get a temporary graffiti amnesty fine plan going during the pandemic, that only lasted about a year.

A better idea would have been for the city’s Public Works department to clean the graffiti and tagging. And that better idea is now a reality, as Public Works announced Wednesday they were launching a two-year pilot program to clean off graffiti for free, upon request.

According to their announcement, “The pilot program will work to relieve participating property owners of the financial burden of removing tags from their buildings, instead allowing professional Public Works crews or City contractors access to wipe out graffiti at zero cost to the effected property and business owners.”

“This program is a win for small businesses and property owners facing the expense of removing unwanted graffiti that creates an unwelcoming environment,” Mayor London Breed said in the announcement. “As San Francisco continues our recovery efforts, it’s critical that we stay focused on keeping our city safe and clean, while also continuing to support our small businesses to ensure they thrive. This graffiti abatement program is just one part of that effort but it will really help our neighborhoods and our City.”

The request portal to get your graffiti cleaned off for free is already live. Response times are listed as being between two to three days, except for parking and traffic signs, which could take as long as 20 days.

Related: Now SF Has a Graffiti Flash Mob; More Than 100 Taggers Coated Mission and 18th Streets Friday Night [SFist]

Image: Joe Kukura, SFist

A man who may or may not have been up to no good required a rescue from the Fire Department early Monday morning after apparently going over the wall beside the Cliff House.

The rescue happened around 7 a.m. Monday, after the fire department received a report of a man stuck on an outcropping below the Cliff House after apparently climbing down there. The call for rescue came in around 6:40 a.m., as the Chronicle reports, after passersby reportedly heard the man calling for help.

Department spokesperson Lt. Jonathan Baxter said the man "went down the rocks, which you are not supposed to do, but humans are curious," and "[He] put himself into a predicament in need of being rescuing."

The wall that the man had presumably scrabbled down the rocks to access is a highly visible tagging spot, but there's no word on whether that backpack he had was filled with spray paint cans.

As KPIX reported, the man was unharmed, and the incident was closed as of 8 a.m.

The former Cliff House, meanwhile, remains quiet while the National Park Service sorts through applications from potential operators with whom to sign a long-term lease. The Cliff House shuttered in 2020 amid much bellyaching by the elderly couple and their family who had run the restaurant for 47 years, after it appeared the feds were declining to sign a new lease with them. As a final gesture, the operating family, the Hountalases, said that the restaurant would never be called the Cliff House again, because they were taking the rights to the name with them.

The Park Service said earlier this year that it had put out a request for proposals, and that a new operator should be in place by the end of this year. We should have an update on the restaurateur or restaurant group selected by this summer — and a first order of business will be cleaning the graffiti off that wall.

Previously: Cliff House Building Ready to Put New Restaurant in Place by End of 2022

Tagging and graffiti can once again result in fines on property owners, as the Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to end a year-long amnesty on fines for properties that don’t clean their graffiti off quickly enough.

It was just about a year ago, a scary time when hardly any of us were vaccinated, when the San Francisco unemployment rate was nearly double what it is now, and around half of SF small businesses were still closed, that Supervisor Hillary Ronen proposed legislation to temporarily suspend graffiti fines for property owners whose storefronts were tagged up and spray-painted.  

"First their shops are vandalized, and then the city comes along and hands them a ticket,” Ronen said in a March 2021 press release announcing the legislation in March 2021. “Honestly, it must feel like a slap in the face."

But that slap in the face is now slapping again. Tuesday afternoon, the Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to reinstate the graffiti fines, and end the “suspension of certain provisions of the Graffiti Removal and Abatement Ordinance regarding issuance of certain violations.” Public works can now once again fine property owners between $300 and $500 for graffiti not cleaned up quickly enough.

Tuesday’s vote was the second reading on an original March 22 vote. Many supervisors discussed why they think the time for graffiti fine amnesty is over.

“The purpose of what we were trying to do,” Supervisor Ahsha Safai said at the March 22 board meeting, was “to give businesses and private property owners a break during the pandemic. But unfortunately, there were some unintended consequences that have grown really bad in a lot of areas of the city.”

Safai said property owners knew there wouldn’t be any graffiti fines, and therefore never cleaned it up. “We’ve reached the point where fines need to be reinstated,” he declared at the March 22 meeting.

Supervisor Ronen, even though it was her legislation that forgave the fines, also felt it was time to reinstate fines now that businesses are largely reopened. “At least, at the moment, we’re out of the worst of the pandemic, where businesses are up and operating again,” she said. “I really think this is the right move.”

Small business owners can (and will) argue that this is unfair to them, but fines are actually levied against the property owner, not the small business itself.

“The law that we suspended, and the law that we are reinstating, does not actually have small businesses as a responsible party,” Supervisor Aaron Peskin said last month. “It is actually the property owner under this law that is the responsible party.”

And this distinction may not even matter. The system, whatever you think of it, did pretty much work even before the pandemic. The owners or the business did respond to the Public Works notices and clean up the graffiti in almost all cases.  

“In only 3% of the cases pre-pandemic were fines ever actually assessed,” Peskin pointed out. “97% of the time they do it without actually having to be dragged in for a fine.”

So it is back to the old system where property owners have 30 days to clean graffiti or else face a fine. But any fees that had been waived by Ronen’s previous legislation will remain waived.

Related: Now SF Has a Graffiti Flash Mob; More Than 100 Taggers Coated Mission and 18th Streets Friday Night [SFist]

Image: Joe Kukura, SFist

It may be an isolated incident gone wrong, or could be yet another new form of emerging petty crime, that “more than 100 people" thoroughly tagged a Mission District corner’s storefronts and vacant buildings Friday night.

It’s by no means unusual for there to be tagging on Mission Street. What is unusual is a coordinated group of “more than 100” taggers going at it in the same spot, as KPIX reports that a graffiti flash mob coated the block of 18th and Mission Streets Friday night, in what now appears to have been a coordinated effort, as seen in the video below.

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The tweet above from KPIX’s Betty Yu refers to an “organized ‘spray paint party,’” and apparently one unnamed small business on 18th Street did cop to organizing a Friday night event. The owner of that unnamed business reportedly “told KPIX 5 that Friday’s event did get out-of-hand and stemmed from an ‘art show’ it hosted,” and that “The owner said that she helped clean up the mess.” KPIX adds that nearby residents claim that particular business “not only allegedly sells spray paint and art supplies to the vandals, but they said it promotes such gatherings.”

KPIX does not disclose which building is being tagged in the video, but SFist assessed the scene and can confirm that the building shown is a very large vacant building at the southeast corner of Mission and 18th Streets (right across the street from Duc Loi Supermarket, next door to Gracias Madre). That building has certainly drawn its share of street artists' wheat-paste posters over the years, but this mass tagging was something of a much different nature.

As of Monday morning, the owner of that vacant building has painted gray over the lion’s share of the graffiti. Yet the sidewalk still shows signs of graffiti mayhem, and plenty of fresh drips from a very recent paint-over job.

But plenty of other storefronts on the block were also hit. Parklets at 18th Street restaurants Ramenwell and Balompie Cafe still have a ton of visible graffiti, despite clean-up efforts that are not yet complete.

And the Mission Street-facing windows at Duc Loi Supermarket are freshly and badly tagged, yet its 18th Street-facing windows (between Mission and Valencia Streets) are simultaneously spotless. Friday’s night’s mass tagging seems to have mostly been limited to 18th Street storefronts, between Mission and  South Van Ness.

Most of the mess is cleaned up as of Monday morning. The mural-style “good tagging” on the street, which had been there previously and clearly was applied with a higher degree of artistic skill, does not appear to have been defaced much. What did get tagged appears to have been touched up since.

But it is the business owners who are on the hook for the cleanup efforts.

“It’s really unfortunate, we have so many small businesses that are struggling to recover,” SF Small Business Commission president Sharky Laguana told KPIX. “They’ve had one punch after another with the pandemic, a second wave and a third wave. And on top of that they have to deal with what I think is clearly an uptick in vandalism and graffiti.”

This was traditionally a double-whammy for small businesses, because they had to pay for cleanup out of their own pockets, plus they were subject to fines from the city. The Mission’s supervisor Hillary Ronen passed legislation a year ago to suspend graffiti fines for businesses, and that remains in effect. KPIX says that “the Board of Supervisors is discussing the possibility of bringing back fines,” but actually, the way the legislation is written says that those fines will remain suspended “until 90 days after the expiration of the Mayor’s Emergency Proclamation regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.” Honestly… will that day ever come?

There appears a distinct possibility that this was a freak one-off event — organized by a small business and meant to jazz up the appearance of an unsightly vacant eyesore on their block — and things got out of control. Or it could be that taggers have taken a page from the sideshow drivers and are now organizing large meetups and events. If the taggers organized it, we may have to worry this practice will be duplicated. If a business organized it and saw things go wrong, well, there will likely be some tension between a few small business owners on 18th Street.

Related: Mission Street Loses Mind After 49ers Playoff Win, But Deplorable Taggers Paint On Muni Windshields [SFist]

Images: Joe Kukura, SFist

Manny's, the politically engaged Mission cafe owned by newly named SFTMA board member Manny Yekutiel, was tagged over the weekend with anti-Zionist, pro-Palestinian graffiti — because Yekutiel is Jewish and critics believe he is anti-Palestinian.

Since it opened in 2018, Manny's has been targeted for graffiti in the past, largely because Yekutiel his family emigrated from Israel, and he has spoken publicly about his belief in Israel's right to exist — while, like many leftist American Jews, he denounces many of the actions of the Israeli government against the Palestinian people.

The place was last vandalized last September, just as Yekutiel was crowdfunding funds to build outdoor "victory booths" for phone banking ahead of the November election. That tagging simply said "FUCK YOU."

And, over the weekend, Manny's was once again tagged with the phrases "Racist pigz," "Zionist pigz," and "Free Palestine," as KTVU reports.

Yekutiel hasn't commented on the recent graffiti or posted about it anywhere on social media, but he wrote an op-ed in the Chronicle in January 2019 after a similar tagging, expressing his thoughts.

He denied being a Zionist and said the business had been "ideologically extorted" by leftist activists in the neighborhood. "Given the mission of Manny’s, we have invited these individuals into the space for dialogue, but their goal is to shut down discourse, not engage in it," he wrote at the time.

He added that the "ideological absolutists on the left and the right" and the toxicity of most online discourse was what inspired him to open Manny's in the first place, as a place to gather in-person to have "vibrant" and productive political discussions.

He wrote:

I’m a religious Jew and proud of it. My father escaped persecution in Afghanistan and journeyed, partly on foot, to Israel to reunite with family who had previously escaped oppression and found safety there. My little sister was almost blown up by a suicide bomber at a bus stop in Jerusalem. As a liberal American Jew, I have complicated feelings about Israel. I do not support everything that its government does (nor everything our American government does). Israel and the United States have provided my family with safety when other countries haven’t, but that doesn’t mean I support the ending of innocent life. My hope for the Israeli and Palestinian people is to soon live in peace with mutual recognition in sovereign and safe borders. This complex issue is a perfect example of the need for high-quality discourse.

Mission Local covered the story at the time, noting that, "This is not an ideal story for straightforward, both-sides, he-said-she-said coverage — all the more so because one of the sides is a diminutive group of attention-seekers going on about Zionist gentrifiers in the Mission and using Jew-as-interloper-and-parasite language."

Anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian sentiments have bubbled back to the surface for activists on the left in recent weeks after the most recent fighting in Israel, with Bay Area activists also targeting an Israeli cargo ship at the Port of Oakland last week. So perhaps it should be no surprise that Manny's would get tagged yet again.

Yekutiel has been accused by activists of being a "proud Zionist," and it's true that unlike some liberal Jews he does not denounce out of hand everything the Israeli government has done. But like many Jews, he believes in Israel's right to exist, which many leftists conflate with Zionism and right-wing Israeli thought.

Lately, Yekutiel has also been seen as anti-progressive, and in bed with Mayor London Breed — especially after she nominated him late last year to fill an empty seat on the SFMTA board. But, as Mission Local pointed out, he had previously served as finance director for Breed's more progressive rival, Mark Leno. Prior to that he worked as an intern in the Obama White House.

One of Yekutiel's foes has been The Lucy Parsons Project, a self-described "radical black queer direct action group fighting anti-blackness in the Bay Area." But Ralowe Ampu of the Lucy Parsons Project told the Examiner in 2019 that the group's attacks on Manny's shouldn't be seen as racist.

"Being anti-Zionist is not being anti-Semitic," Ampu said. And the group has further called the cafe "a gentrifying wine-bar, cafe and fake ‘social justice’ space in the Mission District [that] will only accelerate the raising of rents and the displacement of Black, Latinx, disabled and trans/queer people in the Mission." They also have called Yekutiel a racist because of his support of Israel.

No suspects have been named in the latest tagging, which KTVU has referred to as a hate crime — and they've reposted the SFPD's new multi-lingual tip line for reporting hate crimes, which is 415-558-5588. The SFPD has not confirmed that this graffiti is being investigated as a hate crime.

Previously: Day Around the Bay: Popular Mission District Cafe and Community Space Manny's Vandalized

A man who BART police says has drawn swastikas and racial slurs on trains and stations across the Bay Area will not be charged with a hate crime for the acts, but will still face vandalism charges if caught.

BART sent the photos you see above to media Friday, saying that the man "was seen on video earlier this week writing on the floor at the Embarcadero Station."

BART alleges that the man "has drawn several swastikas and written racial slurs on BART property," and that "such vandalism has been reported at the San Leandro, Glen Park, and MacArthur Stations."

Speaking with CBS 5, however, BART Deputy Police Chief Ed Alvarez says that the suspect, if nabbed, will not be hit with hate crime charges in the case, as "a racial slur or swastika must be directed at a person for in order for it be considered a hate crime."

However, the transit agency still seems ready to go after the man and others who deface BART property, saying that "Whenever [vandalism] is reported we will respond immediately to clean it up and BART intends to pursue criminal charges."

If you recognize the man or see him in person, BART asks that you call BART police at (510) 464-7040. You can also call (510) 464-7011 to make an anonymous report.

The Hall, which shuttered just a few weeks ago, is currently slated for demolition early next year, but in the meantime, its developer is hoping to make some money on the empty space by offering up its walls to both professional and wannabe graffiti artists.

Hoodline has the story, and they say that War Horse LLC and Tidewater Capital — the building's current owners — partnered with Cameron Moberg, a graffiti artist otherwise known as Camer1, to create a unique art event space in the Hall called The Canvas. The idea is that people can pay to bring a group of friends or co-workers in to paint on The Canvas' interior walls with spray paint, with the goal of hopefully increasing appreciation for graffiti art and culture — and making some money on that idea isn't so much of a bad thing, either, it seems.

Moberg told Hoodline that he grew up on 6th Street, and that his early interest in the art form grew into a full-blown passion. The bio on his website says he still lives in the city, and that he teaches art classes for all ages. He met Tidewater Capital founder Craig Young at the Hall, and they came up with the spray-paint reservation idea together. Young said, "The idea came together as part of our process to source concepts with our community partners." Moberg also said that he hopes to promote a greater appreciation for graffiti as an art form, and that by putting spray paint cans in everybody's hands, they'll understand the kind of work that goes into creating public art like that.

It would work like this: groups can make a reservation, with the price point changing depending on how many folks you'd like to invite. Hoodline says that team-building groups of 20 or more are $75 per person, and celebrations for 15 to 50 people are $30 per hour, per person. You'd also get a chance to take home your designs on t-shirts, tote bags, or other merch for an additional fee.

If this seems like the kind of thing you and your friends (or your company) would be into, The Canvas is currently taking reservations on their website.

Related: Replacement Banksy Rat Mural Pops Up At Red Vic, Was Not Done By Banksy

KRON 4 reports that a dentist's office in San Francisco was targeted by some vandals, who painted a racist slur and a swastika on the office's window.

According to the report, the graffiti was composed of a swastika, the n-word, and then the word "die." The office belongs to Dr. Jeff Cox, who told KRON 4 that he's the first African-American dentist to set up an office in the city's financial district. The graffiti was first spotted by employees of the office, who took a photo and quickly washed it off. When asked how he felt about the graffiti, Dr. Cox said, "It’s stunning at first. It’s a little bit of a shock because you feel it’s not necessarily a San Francisco type of thing that you would see."

Given this past year, though, it seems all bets are off as to what "a San Francisco type of thing" might be these days. You'll remember late last year, shortly after the election, a man was arrested for spray painting a racial epithet and symbol on the outer wall of a business in Bayview. Shortly before that there was also the Dolores Heights homeowner who flew a Nazi flag over his home as "a comment" on the Trump victory. Or, over in the East Bay, ahead of the so-called "Free Speech Week" demonstration at UC Berkeley, part of the campus was covered in anti-LGBTQ, anti-abortion, anti-immigration chalk graffiti. On top of that, there's also the Temple Sinai in Oakland, which was tagged with anti-Semitic graffiti after a Rosh Hashanah celebration in September.

In Alameda, swastika flyers began popping up in August, targeting the area's Muslim community. At the same time, there were reports of vandalism at one Alameda synagogue, Temple Israel. Rabbi Steven Chester later commented on the vandalism, saying that neither he nor his congregation were scared of the potential threat underlying the acts.

Dr. Cox shares in that sentiment, as he explained to KRON 4, "I don’t take it personally and it doesn’t anger me. Very disappointing though that there are people like that. The bigots are becoming emboldened in today’s society and frankly I feel a little sorry for whoever would use such a vile word with little regard for the beautiful diversity of humanity."

Related: Hackers On Twitter Send Out Swastikas From Major Accounts Like UNICEF, BBC, British Parliament

Late last night, UC Berkeley students found Sproul Plaza covered in chalk graffiti containing hateful anti-LGBTQ, anti-immigration, anti-abortion messages. A few of the tags read: "Illegals, ICE is coming"; "Build a wall, deport them all"; "Abortion is genocide"; and "ANTIFAGS" — the latter also an apparent reference to antifa.

After ASUC Senator Juniperangelica Cordova-Goff reported the graffiti to Dean of Students Joseph Goodwell, she and a few other students set to washing down the plaza early Tuesday morning. Speaking with the Daily Cal, Cordova-Goff said, "I think they were trying to intimidate us. … This was intended to make people uncomfortable. But I’m also really proud of the students that came out at 1 a.m. to wash off the chalk."

As well, apparently, UCPD was made aware of a "hate incident" late Monday night, but did not see any chalk graffiti at Sproul Plaza, according to UCPD spokesperson Sgt. Sabrina Reich. They also pointed out that the photos of the graffiti — which were posted online by ASUC Senator Alexander Wilfert shortly after they were found — did not match what was given in the report regarding the hate incident. Wilfert also commented on the graffiti, saying, "There’s clearly a disconnecting dialogue. This is not okay, and this is not what we endorse."

This incident comes just a few days before the Berkeley Patriot and Milo Yiannopoulos begin their so-called "Free Speech Week," where they've invited various "alt-right" pundits, provocateurs, and critics to speak on campus. That being said, the event has been losing "scheduled" speakers left and right, with ex-Googler James Damore being the most recent dropoff.

In addition to this, KRON 4 reports that Canyon Middle School in Castro Valley is dealing more anti-Semitic, racist graffiti, which was found spray-painted onto a school district bus. The school reported the graffiti (which included swastikas) and a smashed bus window to authorities at 6 a.m. this morning.

In response, community members around the school gathered to welcome students as they arrived at school in the morning, holding signs that said "Castro Valley United Against Hate."

ABC 7 says that authorities are currently investigating, and will treat the incident as a hate crime. There are unfortunately no witnesses, but police are currently reviewing surveillance footage. NBC shared Alameda County spokesperson Sgt. Ray Kelly's statement on the investigation. Kelly wrote: "We take crimes of this nature seriously. Racist and offensive vandalism will not be tolerated in our schools."

Related: Berkeley College Republicans Threatened By Graffiti

In a defiant move that is totally in keeping with guerrilla muralist Banksy's MO, the mural of a rat that first appeared seven years ago on the side of The Red Victorian bed and breakfast in the Upper Haight, only to be cut out and removed and shown in art shows, mysteriously reappeared in the same spot sometime in the last week or so — so surreptitiously, in fact, that the owners of the building at 1665 Haight didn't even know it was there. Hoodline had the news first, but people on Instagram have already been snapping it — and reportedly the graffiti artists responsible simply used projectors to replicate Banksy's iconic work, as rumored via a neighbor who saw the act.

The motivation may have come from the original piece making a recent appearance in a SoMa art gallery, and strong sentiments in the art world that these pieces should not be displayed in museums or galleries, or sold to collectors.

Super bummer!! Rumors that Banksy repainted his Haight Street Rat (with accompanying "This is where we draw the line") have been debunked, as one of my neighbors snapped photos of some people tracing it from a projector instead of a stencil. Real shame because that window next to the text is, in fact, where my head lays at night. Hence the reprorights sign. #streetart #art #banksy #butnotbanksy #sanfrancisco #haightashbury

A post shared by jami430 (@jami430) on Jul 6, 2017 at 9:30am PDT

The original 2010 mural, done in two colors and later known as the Haight Street Rat, depicted the rat appearing to have grafitti'd a long red line that connected all the way to a neighboring building on Belvedere Street where a message in large letters read "This Is Where I Draw The Line." SF Citizen captured the full angle on it here. The piece was one of a spree that Banksy painted while touring around SF in 2010 during the premiere of the documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop.

Most of the 2010 pieces are now, sadly, gone, because the city ordered them removed or covered under its graffiti ordinance — which seems weird because they could have just been retroactively called murals, but I digress.

You may recall how in late 2010 the former (and now deceased) owner of the Red Victorian, Sami Sunchild, who had always considered the Banksy piece vandalism and was about to paint over it, allowed the piece to be removed whole by local self-described "art freak" Brian Greif with the caveat that it couldn't be sold. Haight Street Rat then popped up in the lobby of the US Bank tower in Los Angeles in 2014, and was also shown in a Miami gallery show alongside other Banksy pieces that had been removed from exterior walls and were never intended be sold or displayed by the artist.

For the very reason that Banksy does not intend for these graffiti pieces, which at their heart express anti-establishment sentiments, to be displayed in museums or sold, SFMOMA refused to accept Haight Street Rat as a gift from Greif without a letter from Banksy allowing this, as well as a certificate of authenticity. Banksy refused to provide that, and some of this forms the drama of the subsequent documentary Saving Banksy, which was executive produced by Greif.

As far as we know, Greif still has the original Haight Street Rat in his possession, and has complied with his promise never to sell it and refused multiple six-figure offers — despite Hoodline suggesting it was sold to a collector.

The original has been on view for several months at the Weinstein Gallery in downtown SF as part of a show of "urban surrealism," which perhaps sparked the recreators to do their work in the Haight, possibly overnight on July 4 while cops were all preoccupied with fireworks shenanigans.

A free public art from Banksy, taken down to make huge economics for the gallery and the wall owners. You decide. #banksy #banksyrat #freeart #urbanexplorer #streetarteverywhere #ethics #vsco #art #savingbanksy

A post shared by Benito Bautista (@b3nitobautista) on May 25, 2017 at 10:48am PDT

Cool to see this piece by @banksy. It was the focus of the 2014 Film, “Saving Banksy,” and now it’s on display at the @weinstein.gallery.sf VANDALS OF LONDON show. #banksy #banksyrat #savingbanksy . . . . . #streetart #street #sprayart #urban #urbanart #urbanwalls #wall #wallporn #stencilart #art #graffiti #instagraffiti #instagood #artwork #mural #graffitiporn #photooftheday #stencil #streetartistry #instagraff #instagrafite #streetarteverywhere #screenprint #lichtenstein #beneine #pureevil #sickboy

A post shared by DBSON (@dbson) on Mar 28, 2017 at 3:26pm PDT

So, everyone's hopes that Banksy was just getting rolling on a fresh round of San Francisco street artworks appears to have been debunked, and it's unclear how he'd even feel about this kind of replication. But, the reappearance of Haight Street Rat in the exact place it once was at least expresses the idea, that he would approve of, that this piece belongs here and only here — and that such "vandalism" has a way of sneaking right back once it's "cleaned."

As Curbed notes, says Haight resident theelizzrdqueen, who spotted the piece out her window this week, "I'm glad #thebanksyrat is back. His presence reminds me that the resistance is still alive, that people do care and are fighting back and that a single person or a single act can make an impact that reverberates throughout the world. And that act can be as small as putting up a piece of art where you aren't supposed to."

It remains to be seen if the building owners will be forced to cover this one up too.

I didn't really celebrate much this #4thofJuly, largely because it seemed a bit strange to be celebrating our nation's independence and freedom when, at this time, those very things seem so at risk for so many people. I went to bed early, while the sounds of fireworks and revelry still echoed throughout the city, and couldn't help but think that the sounds could just as easily have been bombs, gunfire. How for many people in this world--and even within this country--the echo of distant booms mean bloodshed, not celebration. I went to bed feeling a little bit hopeless and depressed, like maybe everyone in this country is just too busy getting belligerently drunk on cheap booze to think about this shit. So, when I woke up to discover this @banksy piece had appeared overnight on the building directly across from mine, I found it oddly comforting. It's technically a reappearance as this piece is located in the same spot as the previous one, which was accompanied by the text "THIS IS WHERE I DRAW THE LINE" on the adjacent building and was removed back in 2010. I'm glad #thebanksyrat is back. His presence reminds me that the resistance is still alive, that people do care and are fighting back and that a single person or a single act can make an impact that reverberates throughout the world. And that act can be as small as putting up a piece of art where you aren't supposed to. Remember kids, making #art is a radical act, and art made with intention and a message can be revolutionary. Keep making art, don't be discouraged by the horrible people doing horrible things, keep committing radical, revolutionary acts every day until the message has spread so far and is being sung so loud that they can't ignore it any more. ✊🏼✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿✊🏻 . . . . . #vivalaresistance #resist #patrioticasfuck #fuckdonaldtrump #fuckpatriarchy #fuckcapitalism #createcommune #creativeclass #makeartradicalagain #banksy #streetart #upperhaight #sanfrancisco #1amsf

A post shared by L. (@theelizzrdqueen) on Jul 5, 2017 at 3:06pm PDT

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