Vandalism filmed in Chinatown over the weekend damaged a new mural and left local businesses venting their frustration over ongoing graffiti and other property damage.

The video was captured by a security camera at eevee’s, a store selling electric scooters and other personal electronic vehicles, early Sunday morning on East Pender Street.

It shows someone spray painting the side of a nearby business, the Ten Ren Tea and Ginseng Company. The person occasionally leans into an alley but repeatedly emerges for about 15 minutes, sometimes with passers-by.

The resulting graffiti obscured part of a multi-panel mural by artist Carolyn Wong, which was commissioned by the Vancouver Chinatown Business Improvement Association (BIA) in partnership with the Vancouver Mural Festival and Dr Sun Yat -Sen Classical Chinese Garden. The mural had only been completed a few weeks earlier.

Vancouver Chinatown BIA President Jordan Eng said the artwork is for the community and people to appreciate the culture of the area.

“It’s really disheartening to see this kind of activity and we see it regularly,” he said. “It’s property damage. It creates a perception in the neighborhood that we don’t care – and we care.”

“WE SEE NEW GRAFFITI EVERY DAY”

Eevee CEO Bradley Spence said seeing part of the vandalized mural saddened him.

“I hate to say it, but I’m surprised it lasted five weeks in this neighborhood because we see new graffiti every day,” he said. “In the 13 or 14 months we’ve been open, we’ve spent over $30,000 fixing our broken windows, our doors being repeatedly broken, putting anti-graffiti coatings on our paintwork, cleaning up old graffiti, it’s not never ends.”

Nearby in Mount Pleasant, the area’s ZAC executive director, Neil Wyles, said some murals in the area had been smeared with graffiti so often that repairs had to stop.

“I hate to say (we) gave up, but we kind of gave up on fixing them. We’ve had enough and the budget is too long,” he said. “The Mount Pleasant BIA will spend about $100,000 this year to remove graffiti or fix things like this, and that’s a significant amount of money and we could do a lot of other things to benefit this neighborhood and residents of Vancouver with this amount of money.

Wyles said there are graffiti vandals who are prolific, with “hundreds and hundreds of tags”.

“At some point, the VPD (Vancouver Police Department) and the justice system have to say enough,” he said. “This is not a victimless crime.”

Spence said he was tempted to camp out in his store to try and catch someone red-handed and give them an idea. He also reported vandalism to the mural next to the police.

“I’m going to point it out every time, even if they don’t feel like they’re doing much about it,” he said. “The city needs to be tougher on crime, especially when it’s a huge problem for all these businesses.”

“IT’S REALLY FRUSTRATING”

Vancouver Police Spokesperson Const. Tania Visintin said graffiti happens more often in Chinatown, and “we ask anyone to call us as soon as they see this happening.”

In an emailed statement, the City of Vancouver said it recognized that “Chinatown is facing an increase in graffiti and vandalism.”

“As part of the 2021 and 2022 budgets, $500,000 has been provided to Vancouver’s 22 BIAs for graffiti removal and wall repairs,” the city said. “This funding includes grants of $50,000 each for Chinatown and Downtown Vancouver.”

The Vancouver Mural Festival told CTV News that the damaged artwork had a vandal-resistant coating and would be cleaned.

Eng also encourages businesses to file police reports regarding vandalism, to help them allocate resources efficiently.

He also hopes people will give local businesses a boost by visiting the area.

“Come support Chinatown businesses,” he said. “We need more people on the street. Businesses would appreciate it.”

Spence also has a message for those who cause vandalism and damage.

“Please stop. You’re not hurting the city, you’re hurting these small businesses that employ fellow Vancouverites,” he said. “It’s just really frustrating.”