Police seeking information about graffiti on downtown businesses

LACONIA — A handful of graffiti tags cropped up on the exterior walls of downtown businesses and police are seeking any information members of the public may be able to provide. 

The tags, which read “help me” and “I hate my life,” were spray painted on walls of businesses on Canal and Hanover streets sometime within the last two weeks, police say. Police are seeking help from the public regarding any leads or tips someone may have.

In describing the graffiti as an isolated incident, Police Chief Matt Canfield said he doesn’t believe it is part of a wider trend. 

“I don’t think it was a spree,” Canfield said Thursday morning. “More like a one- or two-night thing.”

Canfield said he isn't sure if existing surveillance cameras caught the vandal in the act.

Police are working with the City of Laconia to review and increase surveillance camera coverage downtown in light of the discovery. 

At a meeting of city council on Monday evening, councilors discussed looking into the possibility of assisting building and business owners in cleaning the graffiti off their walls and the prospect of increasing surveillance camera coverage. 

“I see that we have, unfortunately, more graffiti on the walls of businesses along the Main Street corridor and business district,” Mayor Andrew Hosmer said Monday night. “That flies in the face of everything that we’ve tried to do in the Main Street corridor with promoting more people visiting us and businesses taking root.”

Hosmer asked City Manager Kirk Beattie to look into a process for the city to help clean the graffiti and to note what the associated costs would be.

“I realize that the damage done to a private building is probably the private owner's responsibility,” Hosmer said. “I’m wondering if you could look into — what’s the process if we wanted to get that cleaned and how much would it be?”

“We can do that,” Beattie said. 

Hosmer went on to explain that such vandalism, while not necessarily the city’s responsibility to rectify, does not further municipal goals in attracting tourists, locals or businesses to the downtown business district.

“I feel badly for the business owners, the property owners. And I understand it’s not our responsibility as a city but it impacts everything that we’re trying to do here,” Hosmer said. “I’d almost like to say, ‘Could we afford to just clean these buildings?’ Because it really does burn me to see some of this nonsense that’s spray painted on buildings for no good reason. We all appreciate art to some extent — this isn’t art, this is just, in my mind, kids acting out.”

In pondering potential solutions, Hosmer asked Beattie to speak with Canfield to coordinate the installation of more security cameras downtown. 

“Positioning our cameras, maybe you could work with [the police chief, it would be nice to have more cameras around to just maybe pick up on stuff like this,” Hosmer said. “It’s just really disappointing to see stuff like this.”

“Yep, we could certainly work on both of those issues related to that,” Beattie said. 

Ward 1 Councilor Bruce Cheney, who was at one point the chief of police in Laconia, said he’d like to see increased surveillance of the business areas of downtown to help mitigate future vandalism. 

“I would submit to you Mr. Mayor, and this is not a criticism, but our, for lack of a better term, our failure to be able to stop that certainly justifies what you’re asking for me,” Cheney said. “I would wholeheartedly support the idea of getting more cameras up downtown so we could see what’s going on and try to put a stop to that.”

And noting the police department is short-staffed at present, Cheney said if it were reasonable he’d support foot patrols by a police officer at night in the area. 

“I know the department is shorthanded, and that makes it difficult, but if we could get somebody walking downtown at night that probably would help,” Cheney said. “Even if it's only an hour here and an hour there.”

Anyone with relevant information should contact the Laconia Police Department at 603-524-5252, or anonymously to the Laconia Crimeline at 603-527-1717, or through the Tip411 app.