Spoil Spurt

Nicholson is no anti-art nazi. The still-unoccupied TWA building is currently home to "House," by artists Dana Hargrove and Colby Smith. For the past three months, the installation has lit up the first floor and is visible to people passing on the street. Still, Nicholson says, the ravaged TWA building spurred him to take anti-graffiti action. At the same time, many Crossroads property owners, afraid that visitors would mistakenly think the graffiti was connected to gang activity, have expressed frustration to Nicholson that they were getting hit, too. Nicholson started talking with developer and lawyer Butch Rigby and Birch Telecom head Dave Scott, and the trio began working within the Crossroads Community Association. The group's treasurer, Marilyn Block, says they raised $56,000 in private donations -- which the city has promised to augment -- to help neighborhood business owners clean graffiti off their walls (if the business owner has paid the association's $60 annual fee).

KCPD Detective Mark Mosbacher credits Nicholson with prodding police and prosecutors into taking a more active role against graffiti. Around the first of the year, the Kansas City Gang Squad raided an apartment at 42nd Street and Walnut belonging to John M. Griffin, a graffiti artist whose tag was "Moneystacks" or "MS 409." His moniker was so ubiquitous that the police acquired search warrants for his residence -- a practice, Mosbacher tells the Pitch, that was "uncommon, to say the least." The bust netted 650 cans of spray paint, along with five glass-engraving kits and eight bags of spray-paint nozzles, according to The Kansas City Star. Mosbacher says he hasn't seen any new tags from Moneystacks.

The Gang Squad has begun keeping files on particular taggers to help build cases against them that could lead to felony charges if they're ever caught, Mosbacher says. In the past, he adds, minor acts of vandalism, treated individually, would go to municipal court, where the charges would likely be dropped. But when police keep a file, those minor acts can become a federal offense if they add up to $750 or more in property damage.

"We never used to make a big deal about graffiti crime," says Denise St. Omer, head of the Community Justice Unit at the Jackson County Prosecutor's office. "People didn't used to want to bother with the criminal process. They'd rather just clean it up and write it off as an operating expense, part of the cost of owning a business."

But those costs went up in July when the City Council passed an ordinance imposing fines on property owners who failed to clean up graffiti on their property within fifteen days. The ordinance also makes it a crime for retailers to sell aerosol paint to anyone under age eighteen and prohibits minors from possessing the paint without adult supervision. Councilwoman Deb Hermann, who sponsored the ordinance, says it represents a clear message aimed at "ending graffiti and raising the standard for property maintenance."

Now, there's a warrant out for Newa's arrest.

Bob Fessler, the general manager of Lamar Advertising, remembers that Newa hit his billboards in the spring of 2001. At the time, Lamar owned billboards at Fifth Street and Beardsley and at 25th Street and Troost. The Beardsley billboard was Newa-ized into a Tommy Hilfiger logo, with "Newa Hill" and "Jesus Was a Player Hater" written on it. The billboard on Troost became a logo for a fictitious fast-food joint called Newa's Chicken, "Where Bitch's [sic] Get Served."

Newa was never caught, and Fessler sold those billboards to Viacom Outdoor Advertising in August 2001. This past spring, Newa used three of Viacom's billboards as frames for his cereal series. The Smacks frog, Tony the Tiger and the Lucky Charms leprechaun earned Newa a felony charge each at Third Street and Beardsley, 718 McGee and 1812 Baltimore. The charges allege that Newa "knowingly damaged billboards" by painting them over and marking them "with sexual content, drug-related [messages] and terrorism and the name 'NEWA.'" The warrant cites damage amounting to more than $750. Tracy Holmes, the general manager of Viacom Outdoor Advertising, declined to comment.

"In these situations, more times than not, you never find who did it," Fessler says.

Newa is driving his Kia down the dark, Edward-Hopperlike alleys and side streets downtown, a Tootsie Pop clenched between his teeth, a Mountain Dew in the cup holder and a can of spray paint rolling around his backseat.