Police: Graffiti on the increase Watsonville over last month

About 100 Watsonville businesses have been tagged with graffiti over the past month, police said.

Police and businesses say they’ve had enough.

There is a stretch of Watsonville, specifically downtown, where it’s hard to miss graffiti on most buildings.

Police are scratching their heads to figure out why the tagging has spiked over the last month, but their increased enforcement led to five arrests during Thanksgiving week.

Police said they have to divert resources away from normal assignments to focus on graffiti. They are urging businesses to paint over the tagging because they say it deters people from tagging again.

Police say there is a municipal code in place stipulating that if businesses don’t cover up graffiti within two days, will be fined. However, they say that’s never been enforced. Instead, police are asking businesses to paint over after the rain subsides.