Vandalism and graffiti on the rise

Busted up flower pots on Main Street. Rocks hurled through windows at Starbucks, Pedro's Tacos and the Angel Shop. Trash strewn about town that takes hundreds of volunteer hours to clean up.

Over a 50% increase in graffiti over the past year.* Eagle Scout projects being defaced. Concerns over open-flame cooking at homeless encampments. Parks being vandalized daily. This is not "fake news."

Some argue that crime, vandalism and litter aren't very big problems given Fallbrook's small-town population. The rest say it's too much. Some want to help, some just want to sit back and complain about it. Fortunately, locals are finding their voices and acting out. So, what's going on?

According to a recent report released by Lieutenant Ricardo Lopez at Fallbrook's Sheriff Substation, the number of violent crimes has actually decreased so far for 2019, with a total of 24 compared to 30 for the same reporting period in 2018. Property crime is also slightly down with 182 reported in 2018 compared to 184 last year.

Lopez said, "Since the beginning of this year we have had 85 vandalism incidents, and the same time period last year it was 71 incidents. For larceny (theft), we are at 96 incidents compared to 83 for the same time period last year." (Reporting periods being January through end of July).

In general, one of the most disturbing problems on the rise is vandalism and graffiti. According to Marta Donovan, Fallbrook Beautification Alliance Board Member, graffiti has more than doubled from 2018 to 2019 (from January to June). Last year FBA reported 879 graffiti tags that required 254 volunteer hours to clean up. This year a whopping 1,729 tags were cleaned up in 425 volunteer hours.

Jackie Heyneman of Save Our Forest said they were "so tired of the costs associated with repairing and replacing the beautiful handmade white oak benches in town that the 'Pedestrian Friendly Bench Project' was born. That's why you see recycled plastic benches in town now – sadly, easy graffiti removal was the primary reason for it."

With regard to the broken flower pots on Main Street, luckily the Prohibition Brewery owners caught and reported activity related to the flower pot vandal(s) on their surveillance camera and are actively working with the Sheriff's department to identify and hold the criminal(s) responsible. This is a great example of someone seeing something and saying something. It's an old adage and a good adage.

As far as the amount of litter in town goes, the Fallbrook Beautification Alliance kicked off a new 'Keeping Fallbrook Litter Free' program on Jan. 12 to answer the growing need for litter abatement in the Village and surrounding areas. "Our program covers 48 square miles and 20 zones," said Marta Donovan. "From January to June this year, we've collected 1,882.50 (5-gallon) buckets of trash. This includes countless Starbucks' cups, cigarette butts, fast food trash, straws, and plastic waste.

"We've also started clearing illegal dumping sites where you see mattresses, construction debris, car accident remnants, air conditioning units, washers, dryers, tables, car and truck tires, paint, motor oil and those kinds of things," but, she noted, "We also feel very good cleaning litter from our Santa Margarita and San Luis Rey watersheds to divert litter from our beautiful San Diego beaches."

Also newsworthy is the fact that Lopez and his team at the San Diego Sheriff Department's Fallbrook Substation have added two dedicated sworn officers to head a new Homeless Assistance Resource Team to provide resources to those experiencing homelessness. These officers interact with the county public works department and the community to clean up encampments and redirect homeless residents to appropriate regional resources, as Fallbrook doesn't have access to many social services.

At the end of the day, if residents don't like what they're seeing around town, they can:

- Take an hour out of their weekend and volunteer with the Fallbrook Beautification Alliance to (literally) clean up downtown, https://fallbrookbeautification.org.

- Volunteer at the Fallbrook Substation, https://www.sdsheriff.net/recruitment_volunteers.html

- Help out at the Fallbrook Homeless Advocacy's monthly outreach events and learn what their community's needs are: https://www.facebook.com/bradfox1949/

- Call (760) 451-3144 to report graffiti sightings.

*FBA counts one word as one piece of graffiti, as opposed to the police who consider one entire tag (regardless of the amount of words) one case of graffiti.