Spray bomb, ink tag, slap tag, scratch-iti and etch-iti may be unfamiliar terms to many people.

But not to Canadian commercial property managers and business owners who have become increasingly more aware of graffiti in all its guises.

Since the mid-1990s, when hip-hop graffiti made its way north from the United States, it has grown in popularity and sophistication.

Enter Goodbye Graffiti Inc., a company specializing exclusively in graffiti removal.

Brennan O'Connor, Business Edge
Brent Bowman, Goodbye Graffiti Toronto co-owner and director of operations, is ready to swing into action against graffiti.

Whether it's a spray bomb (spray paint), ink tag (Sharpie or other indelible ink), slap tag (adhesive mailing labels) or the damage done to windows through scratch-iti and etch-iti, Goodbye Graffiti's proprietors say they can eradicate it.

"We can remove graffiti off of anything, whether it be porous brick, marble, sandstone, concrete, cinderblock, even glass," says Brent Bowman, director of operations for Goodbye Graffiti Toronto. Bowman co-owns the company with John Kalimeris.

"We guarantee 100 per cent removal and zero damage to any building," Bowman says. "If we find graffiti we can't remove completely, there is no charge for the service."

Goodbye Graffiti was started in Vancouver in 1997, after company founder Perri Domm was assigned the task of removing graffiti from the co-op housing complex where he lived.

Unable to find a suitable company for the job, Domm seized the opportunity and started his own.

With help from chemical-industry veteran and college friend Chris Burke, the new company formulated a line of specialty products targeting different forms of graffiti.

The company now has 15 franchises across Canada and the U.S., including Calgary and Edmonton, Tacoma, Portland, Seattle, Denver and Atlanta.

Kalimeris, a security consultant at the time, got into the graffiti business when he was asked by a Vancouver client to investigate a graffiti problem.

Goodbye Graffiti came to his rescue and he bought a Victoria franchise in 2002.

After 18 months, Kalimeris looked into moving to Toronto, but needed help setting up shop in a much bigger market.

"That's when I got involved," Bowman says. "John and I had been friends and worked together in the past. I looked at the opportunity and we jumped on it."

The partners bought two franchises - east and west Toronto - in September 2002 and were open for business by March 2003. Bowman says they doubled their business in the first year and are on track to double it again this year over 2004.

In Toronto, Kalimeris and Bowman count more than 500 buildings as clients, including those owned or managed by CB Richard Ellis, Olympia & York, the Toronto Community Housing Corp. and Starbucks.

The company operates three one-man graffiti-busting War Wagons, complete with cleaning products, paint supplies and hot-water pressure washers.

Bowman estimates the company will swell to six or seven vehicles and 25 employees over the next five years.

Bowman's optimism is bolstered by a new Toronto bylaw that came into effect in February and requires property owners to clean up graffiti within six days. If they fail to comply, the city will do it for them at a cost of $500 or more for large defacements.

"People are understandably very frustrated because they end up being victimized twice," Bowman says. "We are sympathetic toward that, but there are a lot of absentee landlords who, as long as their rent cheque is coming in, may not care what their building looks like.

"They believe that even if they pay to have it removed, three days later they will have it again, so what is the point?" he says.

Bowman says the most effective deterrents to new graffiti are consistency and the speed of removal.

He claims the company's Ever-Clean Program excels at both, charging members $20 a month for weekly full-site patrols and removal of all graffiti.

"One of the things we know is that continually removing graffiti and keeping the building up will actually lessen the amount of graffiti the building will get," Bowman says. "In some cases, we've had program member buildings that were hit two or three times in the first two months.

"In a short while, those same buildings may get graffiti once a month and in smaller amounts."

Given the increasing, and now near-mandatory, demand for its service, Goodbye Graffiti has begun to hear the rumble of competition. But Bowman says the company has a number of differentiating factors in its favour, including its experience, specialty, environmentally friendly products, trained staff and online job contracting.

"Through our Click Off system, clients can request a graffiti-removal estimate through our website," Bowman says. "We take digital pictures of everything we see and e-mail an estimate back to the customer.

"They can approve the work just by responding to the e-mail. The whole process is so automated, clients don't have to even speak with anybody if they don't want to."

Typical graffiti taggers are males between 13 and 17 years old, who are from middle- to lower-income families, Bowman says.

Most graffiti, he adds, appears between Richmond to Dupont streets and Spadina to Ossington avenues.

Contrary to popular belief, gang-related graffiti accounts for only five per cent of all graffiti in North America, while racially oriented or hate graffiti comprises an even smaller percentage.

Even so, graffiti has quantifiable negative effects on communities and businesses.

Kathy Kennedy, co-chair of beautification for the Bloor West Village Business Improvement Area - who also lives and works in the area - says she saw the problem escalate to the point that it was affecting residents and businesses.

"First of all, there's the appearance," Kennedy says. "Graffiti makes it look like the neighbourhood doesn't care.

"It also makes people believe there are safety issues. A lot of people assume graffiti means gangs, which isn't true, but it still denotes a bad image," she says.

Initially, a small group of community members attempted to clean the graffiti themselves by painting over it, but soon realized that they were not qualified to remove graffiti from the community's brick, stone and marble buildings. That is when they called in the professionals.

"When we first walked into Bloor West Village, they had a huge graffiti problem," Bowman says. "Now, when I talk to people in the area, they tell me the neighbourhood doesn't have a graffiti problem.

"I just say: 'Thank you.' The main thing we want to show people is the tangible improvements that can be made, and that you can beat graffiti."

(Mike McLeod can be reached at mcleod@businessedge.ca)