From the Westlake Picayune, Wednesday April 10th 1996:
Westbank business cleaning up in the art of graffiti removal
Jennifer Brown
Staff Writer
Everyone has seen it. The occasional stop sign defaced with less-than-pretty
phrases; the backyard fence annoyingly blasted; or the entire wall of a
downtown building turned virtually unrecognizable. The culprits are termed
"taggers," and their weapons are cans of spray paint and colored
markers.
However, these menaces don't walk the streets alone-they have
an enemy. And the enemy's war zone headquarters are disguised as a quiet
business called "Off the Wall" Graffiti, nestled in the heart
of the Westbank, and the six-member teams' strategic efforts to keep the
Austin area free from eye-stinging vandalism are really cleaning up. Their
business motto goes something like this: "Taggers never sleep. Neither
do we." And this phrase rings all too true for "Off the Wall"
Graffiti co-owner Walt Graner, who can't seem to turn his eyes from his
digital pager when talking about the 24-hour graffiti-erasing company.
"We do get our share of emergency calls," stated Graner who credits
his wife and President of "Off the Wall" Graffiti, Victoria,
with the true ingenuity that has fueled the fast-growing business. But
for Walt Graner, graffiti-battling has been just a part of his routine
for as long as he can remember. "For almost my entire life-I was in
construction and building maintenance with my father, and even when I was
in junior high, my dad would tell me, 'hey, we've got some writing on the
walls over there-go take care of it,"' Graner said.
One college degree
and several years later, Graner found himself once again in business with
Dad, and just as de-ja-vu strikes unexpectedly, wound up back on the streets
with his grafflti-removal tools in hand. "For about a year, I did
this, just as favors for friends mainly," he added.But enter Graner's
now wife, Victoria, and that is when everything went "Off the Wall".
Her shrewd business sense told her that a graffiti-removal service would
get the phones ringing and a business booming.And she was right.
"When we first started out (1994) there was a big demand, but, the hardest part
that we had was actually getting peop]e to know that we could do it and
we were here," Graner remarked. "And advertising is extremely
expensive." So how did they get their word out? It is spelled F-R-E-E.
"Half of what attracted me to graffiti removal was that property management
and handling of apartments-everything I dealt with was negative. Every
time the phone rings it's a complaint," he said. "In the beginning
with "Off the Wall", every time we would hear of an organization
that either had a trouble spot with graffiti-a church or a nonprofit organization,
anything, we were right on top of it. Honestly we do more work for free
than not."
One recent example of "Off the Wall's" take on
zapping the wreckage vandals leave in their wake occurred just last week,
when the statue of the Virgin Mary was hit by what Graner likes to refer
to as "the little darlings." "Those are the types of things
we do for free," commented Graner, who noted his team just finished
their second "clean up" of San Marcos. "I love it. It makes
me feel great-it's such a great feeling to actually remove nasty words
from churches and the statue of Mary and things like that." But even
with all of their charity work, "Off the Wall" is never lacking
in the daily to-do list of money-making, graffiti reversal projects. They
have become so popular, in fact, the company currently has operations under
way in San Antonio and Houston and, although they have not yet treaded
down the franchise route, with the proper research an accountability-for-quality
plans in place, Graner says it won't be long.
Just a portion of their long
list of regular clients include the City of Austin, Austin historical buildings,
the City of San Antonio (the Alamo, the Riverwalk), all bus stops, McDonald's,
Wendy's, ACT III Theaters, Southwestern Bell and several school districts.
As for their graffiti-murdering techniques, Graner says something new pops
up on the market every day. A big aspect of his job requires keeping up
with what works best on what surfaces etc. He says, however, the main thrust
behind "Off the Wall"'s success lies in the company creed. "We
found out that the way we actually deal with the removal of graffiti is
very basic, but it is very stringent on how you do it," Graner expressed.
"You have to do it well, you have to do it quickly, and you have to
do it quietly. It's a non-aggressive approach to what we do." Graner
explained that when the vandals actually watch their handiwork coming down,
it only adds fuel to their fire, and they will be back in a flash just
to make their mark it all over again. Through their methods of carefully
planning when to strike with a counter-attack, "Off the Wall"
has managed to deter taggers from repeat-hits in certain areas.
"By
taking away the fuel, the kids will go someplace else," stated Graner,
who noted that several city, state and national projects need to kick in
to help solve the dilemma as well. "Now that doesn't cure the problem,
but I'm just going to worry about how to help the church keep their front
door clean right now."
