Graffiti strike on senior citizens' club

After dealing with bits and pieces of graffiti during the past six months, Deidre Lumsden wasn't prepared for what she was confronted with yesterday morning.

``After I saw it, I just hoped that if I blink it might go away _ but it didn't,'' she said.

Mrs Lumsden is the secretary of the Napier Senior Citizens Association, and since the shift from Vautier St to the Munroe St premises (formerly the Napier Travel Centre) in October, there had been occasional graffiti strikes.

``It has been happening off and on. I painted over some last week,'' she said.

On Thursday morning, she arrived to find someone had used a red felt pen to daub words on the back wall of the building.

``I was going to get rid of them today,'' she said yesterday as she took in the sight again.

The entire 40m wall had been daubed with grey-black paint.

Tags were also on the south end of the building.

One of the association members arrived and was just as horrified by the vandalism.

``Just terrible, terrible,'' the woman said, shaking her head.

Mrs Lumsden said she had called the police and the Napier City Council after the latest incident, and council crews were set to begin removing it.

As well as the graffiti, the rail side of the building was also littered with broken bottles, empty cans, food wrappers and torn-up shreds of clothing.

Bright, outside lights along the isolated rail side, a legacy of the days when it served as a train station, had failed to deter graffiti strikes, and Mrs Lumsden said the association was looking at adopting another approach _ darkness.

She said without the lighting, the graffiti vandals might not be able to see what they were doing.

She said members could not understand the mentality of the vandals.

``When they get older, and maybe when they are members of a club, how would they feel if someone did this to them?'' she asked

Napier Police Senior Sergeant Eion Evans said anyone seeing any suspicious activity around properties, day or night, should call police immediately.

``Let us check it out.''