Arrests made in 'rampant graffiti spree'
Toronto police arrested the four men Saturday night in Uxbridge after the band played a show at a local pub, on the cusp of embarking on a 43-city tour through Canada and the United States.
Police broke the case after a recent mischief call to a residence in the area of the graffiti.
"We got a routine call and through our investigation one thing leads to another and you discover who's been doing what," Const. Shannon Smith of 22 Division said yesterday. "It was a lot of luck, and hard work."
Danny Surjanac, a singer with the band, and Shane Tyrer, the band's drummer, each face 28 counts of mischief under $5,000.
Ryan McCarney and Sterling Healey face the same charges.
Smith said it's "rare" for police to break graffiti cases. "It is a difficult case. It's difficult to find witnesses. It's done under the disguise of night."
Police counted 71 graffiti signatures known as tags within a three-block radius of The Queensway and Islington Avenue, Smith said.
The graffiti is not gang-related, Smith said.
Typically it is youths, not gangs, who paint tags in Toronto, police said.
Numerous businesses in the area, including a now-vacant meat deli and a closed interiors business, have been spray-painted with the tags, "Riff Raff," "GYS", "Get Loose!" and "Cahoots!"
Trini Gardens Restaurant has been tagged three times, said manager Elsie Nagassar.
"The graffiti has been going on since last summer," Nagassar said. "My landlord has cleaned it up twice."
A City of Toronto bylaw requires owners to maintain their properties free of graffiti.
Municipal licensing and standards officers can issue compliance notices to property owners to remove graffiti.
Failure to comply can lead city MLS staff to remove the graffiti, and pass the cost onto property owners on their tax bill.
Whether any tagged businesses received city compliance notices was not known yesterday prior to Guardian deadline.
The tagging is throughout the area, on walls, signs and vehicles.
"It was done all over, on mailboxes, back fences," Nagassar said. "There's a new computer store down the street that had just renovated. There was graffiti sprayed all over the glass windows before it even opened."
More charges could be pending, Smith said.
But arrests alone don't stem the tide of graffiti in the city. In large part, police say, because the criminal justice system metes out suspended sentences for graffiti vandalism, except in cases of hate crime tags punishable by jail time.
"It's definitely an ongoing frustration," Smith said. "These businesses are shelling out a lot of money to have it cleaned off. It's not fair that they should have to take care of it."
