The beach community rose to the occasion once again this year for Pacific Beach Town Council’s annual Graffiti Day Clean Up on Saturday, May 11.

Hosted by Pacific Beach Presbyterian Church where staging occurred at 1674 Garnet Ave., volunteers fanned out to purge PB of hundreds of graffiti tags.

“The 14th Annual Graffiti Day Clean Up was another major success,” said Charlie Nieto, PBTC president. “A total of 133 volunteers tackled and removed over 1,167 graffiti tags and stickers, setting a new record for our event.”

“We were delighted to be joined by our City Councilmember Joe LaCava, Mayor Todd Gloria, and many other representatives from elected offices, local businesses, and community nonprofits,” added Nieto. “Thanks to the incredible efforts of every one of our 133 volunteers, this year’s event was able to achieve record numbers.”

Materials and training for the cleanup were provided onsite and volunteers of all ages with no experience required pitched in to eradicate unsightly tagging. The annual event has grown from humble beginnings.

“There were more and more tags and stickers messing up the community, so the town council said it was time, partnering with other community groups, to do something about it,” said PBTC board member and Graffiti-Busters spokesperson Tony Schlegel. He added, “We’ve (PBTC) upped the number of locations where we look for stickers and graffiti.”

Schlegel added the town council continually scouts out tagging locations around town. Those results are then handled by Graffiti Busters’ core team member Jim Menders. The graffiti team’s “brains,” Menders maps out all graffiti data as well as offering materials’ instruction to volunteers.

This year’s graffiti-expunging effort was greatly facilitated by Motsenbocker’s Lift Off, a spray paint and graffiti remover safe for vehicles, street signs, buildings, walls, floors, fiberglass, metal, tile, vinyl, plastic, brick, and concrete. “It gets rid of the stickers and graffiti but doesn’t take the paint off,” said Schlegel noting graffiti eradication is truly a “year-round” process. Planning for the annual Graffiti Clean Up event begins in March with bi-weekly meetings by the PBTC team responsible for directing the efforts of dozens of community volunteers.

“This event has become a cornerstone of our community’s efforts to combat graffiti and enhance the beauty of our neighborhood,” Nieto noted adding, “Graffiti plagues every community in San Diego, but with the dedicated efforts of volunteers we ‘can’ make a difference.”

Nieto also extended PBTC’s gratitude to 2024’s list of Graffiti Clean Up premier sponsors, which included Motsenbocker’s Lift Off, PB Presbyterian Church, Pacific Life Church, and Fitness West PB, for making this year’s cleanup possible. For more information about PBTC, go to pbtowncouncil.org.