Vandals wishing to express artistic flair by coating graffiti on Columbus’ buildings should expect to suffer stern consequences if they are caught and convicted.

Graffiti is a first-degree misdemeanor punishable by up to 180 days in jail and a maximum $1,000 fine.

Bill R. Hedrick, assistant city attorney, said he has prosecuted roughly 35 graffiti cases in environmental court over the last three years.

It is not difficult to convict graffiti vandals because they are often caught in the act, with the paint still on their hands, Hedrick said.

However, graffiti vandals rarely receive the full sentence the law allows.

“Usually 10 days in jail was incentive enough to get them to stop,” Hedrick said. “We only had a few repeat offenders.”

In Columbus, convicted graffitists receive an average of 10 days in jail and pay restitution in addition to a $400 fine that includes court costs. They must complete a mandatory 100 hours of community service once their term of incarceration is finished. If restitution payments are missed, they return to jail, he said.

Hedrick said the majority of the 35 people he prosecuted were 18- to 24-year-old, white males who were either college students or had a college background.

Institutions of higher education are taking measures to see that their students are reprimanded if caught and convicted of graffiti vandalism.

“It’s illegal — plain and simple. It has no aesthetic value,” said Jennifer L. McNally, spokeswoman for the Columbus College of Art & Design.     

According to the CCAD student handbook, “CCAD has a zero-tolerance policy on graffiti. Anyone participating in such activities on or off campus will be subject to disciplinary action up to suspension or expulsion.”

McNally said CCAD dealt with four graffiti cases involving its students in 2000 and 2001. All four students were either expelled or suspended. No CCAD students have been linked to graffiti cases since then.

In his five years as director of Student Judicial Affairs at Ohio State, Patrick Hall said he does not remember a single case of an OSU student being charged with graffiti. He did, though, say OSU would take a more dispassionate approach in handling student-graffiti vandals than CCAD.

“We’d factor in the severity of the damage and look for prior violations to the code of conduct,” Hall said. “It’s hard to speculate what might happen. They could be potentially charged with destruction of property.”

Students accused of nonacademic misconduct — like graffiti — can request to have their collegiate fate determined by a university judicial panel comprising of faculty, staff and students, he said.

Graffiti vandals are not the only ones guilty of marring property other than their own.

Blue-chip companies like Microsoft, IBM, Nike and Snapple were recently fined by major U.S. cities for using graffiti to advertise.

According to an Associated Press article printed in the Oct. 26 edition of The Mercury News, a San Jose, Calif. newspaper, IBM and Microsoft were charged by cities on both coasts last year with waging unlawful ad campaigns.

IBM paid $120,000 in fines to the City of San Francisco for spray painting advertisements on sidewalks, and Microsoft paid an undisclosed amount in cleanup costs to remove decals it plastered throughout New York City.  

One local artist said it is absurd to categorize all graffiti as mere vandalism.

“There’s a big difference in the skill level between painting your name on the side of a building and actually creating a design,” said Hoffa, a CCAD alumnus and co-owner of Gods and Monsters Tattoo in Clintonville.

Hoffa, who goes by one name, said the artist should not be judged by the medium they use.

“Just because something is illegal doesn’t mean it’s not art,” Hoffa said. “Some of those guys lay it out in a sketchbook. They just don’t do it. There’s a lot of thought behind it.”

Coincidentally, Hoffa said Gods and Monsters is having an art show in mid-April featuring out-of-state graffiti artists. However, the show will have nothing to do with graffiti but highlight their forte as children’s book illustrators.

“If you want to see how talented graffiti artists are, come and check it out,” Hoffa said.

He said the time and date of the show should be posted on the Internet by the first week of April at www.godsandmonstersart.com.