My heart goes out to the small business owners. This seems like a huge burden on them. I think of the wonderful crew of folks at the Ace by my office. The taggers will still get the spray paint.

"Small business impact statement" seems like a no-brainer...it should always be done.

I don't know you are asking a lot.

Someone like Randy Leonard actually thinking and considering the impact of some of his gut reactions? That'd be funny if he read two books instead of one before he became an expert in a field.

These guys live in their little vaccum making laws to help ther friends or pet projects and consider that the real deal.

"data was never compiled"

It's worse than that.

One would think this new approach is the result of a wits end where all other angles were looked at.

But it's not.

Randy Leonard revealed that he had no idea whether or not any taggers ever got jail time.

Think about this folks. Is it just me or wouldn't the prudent official look at this very basic angle to see if there was a problem in enforcement and punishment PRIOR to piling on a new load onto businesses?

No, not the CoP council. Led by knee jerk in cheif Leonard it's get an impression and spew out a poorly thought out policy.

In the CoPm this is called business as usual.

And you keep reelecting them.

During my term of service on the city's Small Business Advisory Council (SBAC) I chaired a subcomittee that developed such a statement. It was presented to and accepted by council. It was to be a litmus test for policy with regard to the business on impact. I will post it in a subsequent comment.

Since my term of service ended, the SBAC has also developed a "Small Business Bill of Rights" which is either being considered or has been accepted by council.

The idea of the SBAC was for commissioners to present proposed policy changes to the group before taking them to council to gauge the impact on small business.

I am very disappointed that Commissioner Leonard did not choose to inform or consult with the SBAC before bringing forward his proposal on spray paint. Other commissioners, both past and present, have also chosen not to consult the SBAC with policy changes that will clearly affect small business. They come to the SBAC when they want support, as with Adam's business tax reform, but they circumvent the SBAC when they want to push a policy that they know will meet with resistance from the business community.

Here's the policy statement:

Small Business Advisory Council

Economic Development Position Statement

The essential elements for quality of life are a job and economic stability.
A former President once said "the best social program is a job." Finding and keeping a well paying job is, for most citizens, essential to enjoying a high quality of life. Neighborhood residents, business owners and property owners must recognize that their concerns are interdependent rather than adversarial. Economic development must be a priority at both the policy and bureau levels. Business associations, neighborhood associations, City Council, City Bureaus, planners and regulators must work in concert to achieve a balance of economic vitality and livability.

When City bureaus and other public agencies concerned with development issues are pursuing redevelopment, changes to commercial corridors, or areas of commercial concentration, job retention and creation must be the primary factor. The anticipated impact on jobs through redevelopment must consider not only the number of jobs, but the wage and benefit quality of the jobs. Gentrification and densification of commercial corridors must not eliminate the availability of affordable commercial space which is vital to a wide spectrum of essential service industries. Existing industrial zones must be protected.

In order to be profitable and to create jobs, business requires a cost climate of certainty and constancy. Expanding regulations, high system development charges, the Business Income Tax/Business License Fee, retroactive tax increases and ever increasing water and sewer rates are all factors which will lead to a business decision to either leave, not expand, or not locate in the City of Portland or Multnomah County.

A sound transportation infrastructure is vital for a healthy business environment. Portland’s position as a global import/export facility is dependent upon the ability of goods and services to flow freely into and within the region. The City must be proactive in its endeavors and cooperate with both Multnomah County and Metro to prevent further degradation of our highway, rail and water transportation routes and facilities. The time and difficulty involved in offloading and transporting goods will be the primary factor in consideration of this region as a distribution center.

Small businesses and large businesses are mutually reliant. Small businesses, in most cases, rely on large businesses to purchase their goods and services. Consumer oriented businesses rely on the quality employment provided by larger businesses for the discretionary dollars which allow people to shop. Large businesses rely on the diverse range of products and services provided by the small employers. The City must recognize this mutual reliance and not adopt policies which appear to be small business friendly to the detriment of large business.

Availability of capital financing is essential to a healthy business environment. City policy makers and regulators must recognize that barriers to business not only impact the ability of a business to be profitable, but also affect its ability to obtain financing. Since most business failures are associated with debt burden, the city must recognize that high permit fees and system development charges increase the capital required for a business start. The city must fight to retain economic development dollars in the budget and distribute those dollars in such a way as to provide the broadest assistance possible.

My reaction to Leonard's mandates is to take my business outside the city. I'm not going to give someone my driver's license information to buy some Rustoleum for my rod iron railings. I'll buy it out in the suburbs where your freer to be a person. I already buy my gasoline outside the city as a protest against Leonard's ethanol mandate. Ethanol only has a net energy gain of 25% according to Department of Energy citations, and probably even less in Portland, since the ethanol is shipped here from the Midwest via railroads. You also have to drive to the gasoline station more often because ethanol burns faster per mile driven.

Most Portlanders just want to be left alone and not treated like guinea pigs for the Council's grand experiments in social engineering. But it doesn't look good displacing ilk like Commissioner Leonard (and Adams). Most folks I know who do vote seem to vote on emotion and not logic. Maybe a better path is for small Portland businesses to protest and ignore this "spray paint" order. I heard the enforcement dollars aren't there. Ugh!

So folks, whacha gonna do when Smell Bad Leonard is governor?

"So folks, whacha gonna do when Smell Bad Leonard is governor?"

He's too late. The world he helped create during his lengthy smelly political career is coming unhitched.
He's so lacking in perceptive skills he'll whallow in denial as he lives his multiple PERS retirement.

Sorry Randy, you're an OK guy, just never qualified to make public policy.
You should have just stayed a rank and file fireman and left the leading to those with skills.

I'm sympathetic to the small business owners, who have to make a living without sweetheart tax breaks and not a whole lot of cooperation from the city.

But in this case, why didn't the hardware stores produce some estimated costs and some kind of impact analysis? If this is going to be THAT big of a problem for them, they should be able to show me fairly easily why that's so.

Waiting for the city to make the case for them is naive.

A small business impact statement may be a good idea, but the way things are going there may soon be no small businesses left in Portland to impact.

Perhaps we should go for an endangered species listing for Portland small business owners - that may stop the council from doing further damage.

Well, Portland, we've allowed it to happen once again. Good ol' guy Randy Leonard pushes through another STUPID IDEA.

Just what I want to do, take time to buy a can of spray... AND give my vital information to some counter person, who has no desire to protect my identity.

I THINK NOT! I've already had my identity STOLEN: fraudulent checks, credit card used in Mexico... I wasn't in mexico and I still had my card, identity used for other purposes (illegal).

Gresham, Tigard, Wilsonville: Stock up on spray paint...

I have my doubts, too, about whether the spray paint ordinance would significantly reduce graffiti. But as long as we're just speculating about potential impacts, I'll guess that the ordinance wouldn't impose any great burden on businesses. Most small hardware stores already choose to lock up certain items--such as expensive saw blades and router bits--so the hassle of that procedure apparently isn't a business killer. Nor is collecting personal information at the counter--as, for example, when someone pays by personal check.

More generally, I think it's worth questioning the "God bless the noble small American business and free it from all constraints" mentality that’s so prevalent these days. No segment of society is so generally lauded while coming in for so little criticism. Yes, small businesses are an important part of the overall economic picture, but so are taxes, labor laws, and various other social and environmental regulations. Small businesses are primarily devoted to making money for their owners, and that's fine as long as they provide decent jobs with decent wages and benefits--but that's by no means always the case. Small businesses naturally range from good to bad, from responsible to irresponsible. The need for laws constraining businesses is as apparent as the need for laws constraining individuals.

It would be nice, for the sake of balance, to hear a little talk from small-business owners about their social obligations and not just continual complaints about the "burdens" they face in the supposedly "anti-business climate" of Portland or just about any other place they happen to be located. From the perspective of a business owner, no place is ever sufficiently "pro-business."

Small businesses, like individuals, don't do us any great favor by the mere fact of their existence. They prove their worth by how they conduct themselves—and maybe we can reasonably expect them to do a little more to help solve the local graffiti problem, among other things.

Roger Says: "why didn't the hardware stores produce some estimated costs and some kind of impact analysis?"

Once again, a misguided soul...

Plan A. CoP leadership float an idea, have no idea of it's cost/impact then push it through to a vote.

Plan B. Outside groups do provide cost/impact analysis which identifies quantitative evidence of a negative impact of a proposal project or proposal and the City of Portland leadership disregards the evidence and votes in favor of the motion anyway.

The City of Portland MUST/SHOULD provide the estimated costs and impact analysis, and do so accurately. They are paid; they are elected to do this.

Neighborhood groups, private individuals, and others constantly have to FIGHT City of Portland leadership, just to provide the very basic information.

The cost impact analysis would have been developed by SBAC if Randy had engaged them like he should have. That's the purpose of having the SBAC.

As much as I prefer to do business with small businesses, largely because I perceive that my expenditures go to support local economic activity, rather than shipping it immediately out of state, I have to admit that I'm fairly strongly in agreement with Richard here.

Small businesses are primarily devoted to making money for their owners, and that's fine as long as they provide decent jobs with decent wages and benefits--but that's by no means always the case. Small businesses naturally range from good to bad, from responsible to irresponsible. The need for laws constraining businesses is as apparent as the need for laws constraining individuals.

Amen. Some of the most egregious violators of decent labor laws I have known have been small businesses. My wife once worked for a small manufacturing firm which was owned by a couple. He was the serious and technical side of the business, and she was the "Red Queen", offing an employee each week, seemingly just for the power rush it gave her. Such stories are replete amongst those who've worked in or around small business enterprises.

I would also like to point out that small hardware store type businesses have no self-interest in limiting access to spray paints. Not only does in impose additional business requirements upon the business, but they also act to dampen demand for additional hardware store products to remove or cover graffiti tags. Simplistically, open purchase cans of spray paint are a double stimulus for hardware stores. I'm not surprised that there would be resistance...it's not in their economic interests to restrict spray paints.

It would be nice, for the sake of balance, to hear a little talk from small-business owners about their social obligations and not just continual complaints about the "burdens" they face in the supposedly "anti-business climate" of Portland or just about any other place they happen to be located. From the perspective of a business owner, no place is ever sufficiently "pro-business."

Amen. After serving five years as a staffer in the Chamber of Commerce, I cannot underline this enough. I personally get damned tired of hearing this "anti-business" crap, when local governments have been scrambling since 1990 to accomodate, and even pander to, businesses, large, medium and small. The tax laws in this state have transferred the bulk of the tax burden over to homeowners and off of corporations (which, in most cases, includes "small businesses"), and public services, particularly public schools have suffered accordingly. THIS IS WHAT THE BUSINESS COMMUNITY WAS DEMANDING TWENTY YEARS AGO. They got what they wanted, now they don't like it.

The state of Oregon has one of the lowest tax burdens for corporations of any state in the union....yet, we're still "anti-business". Our municipalities are prostituting themselves to attract and keep businesses of all sizes, and the individual taxpayer suffers. Can you say "subsidy"? Hey...I can. I know what was offered to Wacker Siltronic back in 1978...and it wasn't chickenfeed. That was the beginning of the "silicon forest" crap and, now that the subsidy has run its allowable lifetime, the company which now owns the manufacturing plant that it helped build is posturing to get more subsidies...or they'll move.

Local governments need to stop doing what any specific sector of the business community happens to want. Local governments should focus upon equity and fairness to all the revenue sources, building and maintaining adequate public infrastructure, and dispensing with readily accessible public services at a reasonable cost. Ignoring this in the case of public schools has eroded our ability to attract new employers...good schools are the number one determinant of where many, if not most, or even all, prospective business location decisions. We are now in a much worse situation than we were twenty years ago when business taxes were a higher percentage of gross earnings.

We've effectively shot ourselves in the foot in terms of attracting new business investment....Let's not do it again by catering to the whims of yet another portion of the community which has as it's philosphical commitment the maximization of their personal income, rather than the wider, and wiser, community interest.

Easy with the bold tag, tiger.

Fine, let them all go to hell and we can drive out to Home Depot and Target whenever we need a faucet washer.

You forgot Wal-Mart, Jack.

They probably have cheap Chinese spray paint.

I'll personally still go over to my neighborhood hardware store and pay the premium because I'll be able to buy just one of the damned things, not a packet of twenty, including ten that don't, and never will, fit anything in my home. Plus, the guy at the local hardware store doesn't have that vacant stare of ignorance when I ask him where the faucet washers are.

I'm not sure why they're all "going to go to hell" for being required to keep part of their stock under lock and key. I mean, really, have they "gone to hell" because they keep the fancy drill bits under lock and key...NO. Crepes...at Winks you practically have to ask for everything because it's kept behind the counter. Exactly how would a requirement to keep spray paints off open shelves damage Winks' business?

Why do I get the distinct impression that this demand to obsequiate in the wake of "small business" being mentioned is naught but part of an attempt to defraud the public?

And...If the irasible actually drive to Gresham for a faucet washer, then that's their choice. If the taggers have to go to Gresham or other points afar for their spray paint, I sincerely doubt that they are going to wait until they get all the way back to wherever in PDX before they engage in their sick and twisted vandalism. It may be just pushing the problem around (rather like our approach to the homeless), but at least the impact of tagging could be reduced in our neighborhoods. If it actually worked, I'd bet that nearby municipalities would probably follow suit in short order.

I mean, really, have they "gone to hell" because they keep the fancy drill bits under lock and key...NO. Crepes...at Winks you practically have to ask for everything because it's kept behind the counter.

I don't get how the fact that they already lock some inventory up lessens at all the expense of having to lock up the spray paint (which is a much larger block of inventory, by the way). Or how the fact that they already take ID for checks (I'm sure that's become rare) lessens at all the expense of having to take ID on spray paint (probably some sold daily).

Next we'll be locking up the box cutters because of 9/11. Where does it stop with Fireman Randy?

"so the hassle of that procedure apparently isn't a business killer."

"killer"? If it's not a killer or can't be blamed for killing a business any dumb ass idea is worth trying?

How about the time and material costs for the locking display cases and record keeping? What if it's 100s or a few thousand dollars?
And what if a small business declines to do it?
Is Randy going to enforce his new nitwit law and punish the business owner more than any tagger?
Probably. What an ass.

"I don't get how the fact that they already lock some inventory up lessens at all the expense of having to lock up the spray paint . . . . Or how the fact that they already take ID for checks . . . lessens at all the expense of having to take ID on spray paint"

The fact that hardware stores already lock up some stuff and take ID in certain cases doesn't, of course, lessen the possible expense of the proposed spray paint ordinance. My point was just that businesses will impose troublesome procedures on themselves when they think it's in their economic best interest. It's therefore not unreasonable, at least as a matter of principle, to think that they should have to go to some extra and familiar trouble and expense when it's in the community's best interest.

Businesses often like to say that they're part of the community. Here's a chance for them to act like it--in order to protect their neighbors', and perhaps even their own, property from vandalism.

The community benefit of the ordinance may turn out not to be worth the cost to individual businesses, but it seems to me that it's worth a try.

You've obviously forgotten the purpose of a caring/progressive local government is to constantly pass new laws, taxes, and regulations. Plus the occasional slam on the Feds.

Never mind the fact they can't pave the streets, protect us from crime, or prevent/prosecute fraud in their very own taxpayer funded handouts to local political candidates. NOT THEIR JOB!

Businesses often like to say that they're part of the community. Here's a chance for them to act like it--in order to protect their neighbors', and perhaps even their own, property from vandalism.

Yeah...right.

And see how they line up to actually be "part of the community". That's because that line about being part of the community is just so much lip-service. It's "retail propoganda", otherwise known at "advertising". It doesn't actually have to match reality, it just has to sound sincere.

The capitalist paradigm makes it clear that if the customer's interest is not the retailer's interest, then, for the retailer, at least, the customer is just SOL. I'll repeat the paradigm as applied to the problem: It is not in the interest of spray paint retailers to limit access to the product. Doing so reduces the later demand for similar products to cover up (or remove) the vandalism originally caused by the spray paint sold, or stolen, (or, for real hardcore conspiracy freaks, gifted) from the outlet.

I personally don't see what interest there is for any outlet to willingly conform to a community standard that limits access to spray paints. It just isn't in their best capitalist interests.

Also...Note here that if we had sufficient public funding of enforcement, we might be able to place the burden where it actually belongs, on the perpetrators of the vandalism. But, nooooo... The cost of doing that is "anti-business".

The community benefit of the ordinance may turn out not to be worth the cost to individual businesses, but it seems to me that it's worth a try.

What the hell - it's not YOUR money.

I do so love the scattergun approach to governance.

I don't know what else one could reasonably expect from this council - especially from Hugo Chavez-Leonard.

If you don't care about limitations on taggers, then just leave your address and we'll try to make sure the taggers hit your place within the next week.

Then you can enjoy their "art" and know that you had a small part in preserving it.

Prostitution, distribution of drugs, and suspended revoked licenses all prove that merely outlawing something is unlikely to have much impact on those who continue to prostitute, distribute drugs, and drive on suspended revoked licenses.

Does that mean we should give up on enforcement. To the contrary, it means that passing laws without any enforcement mechanism (or the jail space to incarcerate flagrant repeat offenders) is mere folly. If the offender realizes that continued violation of the law will get them tossed into jail for months/years at a time, they are either going to:

A) try harder to avoid getting caught

B) quit violating the law

C) rot in jail.

At present, most criminals (taggers included) realize that EVEN IF THEY ARE CAUGHT (which is unlikely), they are going to be matrixed out for all but the most violent crimes. And 620 beds at Wapato Jail continue to lay empty.

We don't need more laws, we need more enforcement and more jail funding.

Thr trouble with the spray paint ordinance (which also includes glass cutting tools and "glass etching tools"), is that recording who bought what color of spraypaint, and what lot number, doesn't do anything to stop graffiti. Spray paint is mixed in huge batches (10,000 cans per?), so a lot number could mean that this can was bought at any of 25 different stores in the Portland area, and even under different brand labels, still with the same "lot number". So, if the city graffiti cop finds an empty spray paint can by the scene of the crime, he will, what, go to every retailer, and go through their paper files looking for that lot number. Then he'll (she'll) find that that same lot number was sold at a dozen stores, to a dozen different individuals. So then what is done? Interview (haul in for questioning?) all 12 "suspects"? Or do they just haul in any Reed College students or Hispanics or Blacks among the 12?

No one has given me any details on how this would supposedly work.

Doug

"Details"? "Work"? Neither of those concepts is meaningful when you're talking about the Portland City Council.

This ban is just more feel good crap from the cop

Try proving what store the tagger bought the contraband from (unless they where dumb enough too keep the receipt) or didn't drive out of Portland to get their spray paint.

45 min. by bus
30 min. by max
and 10 min. by car
thats how easy this is to defeat.

Whoa! This is a big little issue and everybody wants to weigh in on one side or the other. This could be divisive, like the Iraq war.

My view: This is another transfer from a minority, taggers, to the majority. We will all pay by spending more time in a store just to buy spray paint for a little project. Our privacy will be diminished because now someone else has our ID. And the stores will spend a few more dollars out of their profit on bureaucracy.

It's the law now. The transfer of responsibility is done. All of us have a new complication and cost in our lives. Taggers just have a little new challenge. And I think they love a little challenge. Let's see... Can we sneak on the MAX line without paying and go to Beaverton or Hillsboro or... for our paint? Or should we use fake ID?

If you don't care about limitations on taggers, then just leave your address and we'll try to make sure the taggers hit your place within the next week.

Gimme a break.

First, this isn't about limitations on taggers, it's about limitations on everybody. One can "care about limitations on taggers" and still think this is just a PR ploy. Real limitations on taggers would involve enforcement, which, as everyone knows, is just too much trouble. What's more, it might offend some voting bloc (bus kids, etc.) We all pay so the jellyfish spined council can pretend to be "doing something".

The other part of the comment is just sad.

"The other part of the comment is just sad."

Actually, rr, "the other part of the comment" is remarkably similar in spirit and theme to one you posted recently. Strange, isn't it, how we tend to find find others' bad behavior more offensive than our own?

Here's your sad remark:

"The synthetic earnestness of Richard's comment leads me to offer to help you dump your "accumulated crud" in HIS trash can...

or yard...

or car...

your call"

Posted by rr | August 15, 2007 5:51 PM

I can tell that rr has never had his property "tagged".

Strange how perceptions change with experience.

Until and unless there are sufficient funds allocated for actual legal enforcement, with "time" allocated to offenders to clean up graffito, any ordinance to restrain it will be useless. As I've already pointed out, "slaptags" are already appearing in my southeast Portland neighborhood. Many of the newer "tags" are not spraycan, but permanent mega-point pens.

They gonna lock up all the pens, too?

Public enforcers not doing enough? Tough ship....you got your tax break, shut up and enjoy it.