Graffiti costs Little League big time

BY VICTOR G. MIMONI

Thursday, December 27, 2007 10:42 AM EST

A couple of egotistical vandals with spray cans have just cost the kids of the Bayside Little League a whopping $3,000, according to league officials.

That’s what it cost to remediate the defacement of two storage containers used to hold supplies and materials the league uses when the teams play on the ball fields of Crocheron Park.

It took a while to negotiate an agreement between the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation and the league to allow them to place the containers - shorter versions of the trailer-sized shipping containers seen on cargo ships and trucks - in the lightly-wooded area near the ball fields.

“We had to paint them dark green so they would fit in,” said Bob Reid, president of the Bayside Little League. “We also had to agree to maintain them.”

So when unknown vandals “tagged” the sides of the containers with silver paint, they went from unobtrusive to eyesore. “We had to repaint them and also plant evergreens around to dissuade people from putting graffiti on them,” Reid said. “The whole tab was $3,000-which we had to take away from things for the kids,” he lamented.

Reid hoped that since the plantings concealed the containers, they wouldn’t be a tagger target. His plan worked for a few days - until the early hours of Saturday, December 22, when the doors on the containers were again defaced with white spray paint.

“Not many people even see them so why would you want to graffiti them,” Reid asks. “We have so many other things we need the money for, it’s just a shame,” he said. The league made police reports for insurance purposes, but Reid concluded, “We’re going to just have to catch them. Somebody’s got to pay.”

So, the word to taggers is, “It’s the Little League, you’d better play ball with them.”

THE QUEENS COURIER/PHOTO BY VICTOR G. MIMONI
The Bayside Little League is responsible for the two containers in Crocheron Park, which were defaced by graffiti vandals recently. Repainting and planting a buffer around them cost the league about $3,000 - which they needed for their kids sports program.