The Town Council has approved a change to Town Code requires property owners to keep walls, fences and buildings free from graffiti at all times.

Senior Town Planner Bob Rodgers said the request for the ordinance came from the code enforcement division, however, he noted there have been no significant issues with getting people to clean up graffiti.

“On rare occasions code enforcement encounters individuals that are unwilling to take action to remove or cover up the graffiti,” Rodgers said.

Currently the code prohibits the application of graffiti but has no provision for its removal or cover.

Also, the change includes a definition for “graffiti” which is currently not defined in Town Code, according to Rodgers.

Council members expressed some concern that the regulation and enforcement not be too onerous on the public, particularly those who may not be able to paint over or wash off the graffiti themselves.

Rodgers said that as with all code enforcement issues the town works hard to get compliance and uses citations as a last resort.

The council did amend the ordinance allowing individuals 20 days to clean up the graffiti instead of the 10 days originally in the proposal.

The ordinance change passed unanimously 7-0.