By Erica Thompson, UW News Lab

Jana Jorgensen, the city’s new assistant attorney and liaison to the North Precinct visited the Ballard District Council on May 9th to talk about eliminating graffiti and managing liquor license issues.

“My goal is to reach out to the community and help solve public-safety issues, as well as coordinate with Seattle police and advise them on different issues,” said Jorgensen, who was appointed to the position on March 1.

Jorgensen works closely with the sole graffiti detective at the Seattle Police Department, Christopher Young, to try to overcome this crime. She said it is usually nice homes of middle class families that Young has to knock on the door of to inform parents of their child’s behavior.

One man in the audience noted that Jorgensen never referenced gangs in her presentation and she responded that “graffiti being closely related to gangs is mostly a myth.”

Taggers are usually white, young males between the ages of 14 and 24.

“It’s a crime of opportunity,” Jorgensen said. “Taggers do graffiti to get fame. They want people to know their name.”

The main way Jorgensen said they will combat graffiti is to remove it quickly.

“This does two things: it lets taggers know that they lose that rush and notoriety, and it also lets them know that if they paint on that wall again, it’s going to be gone,” she said.

The way the community can help most is by reporting graffiti, she said. This can be done online at the Seattle Public Utilities website, which also have a hotline to call, or by taking a picture on a smart phone or camera and sending it to 311@seattle.gov.

“I run the Burke-Gilman Trail almost every day and every day I’m on that online report because the graffiti that I’ve seen isn’t gone yet and I want it to be gone, because it affects me when I run in the morning,” Jorgensen said. “I don’t want to see these people’s tags up there, I don’t like it.”

Another one of Jorgensen’s duties is to review the liquor licenses applications and renewals for the North Precinct.

As of May 1, the mayor’s office has enacted a voluntary ban program on sale of certain alcoholic beverages, such as fortified wine and malt liquor, between the hours of 6 a.m. and 1 p.m. in specified areas. Since some retailers are finding ways around the ban by offering new beverages that are not on the list but have the same alcohol content, Jorgensen proposed to boycott these retailers.

“It’s my suggestion to citizens with regard to helping the retailers understand what the impact is on the community when they sell to these chronic public inebriants,” she said.

A man in the audience responded that he appreciates her position, but “let me caution, you may be going a little beyond what the city should do.”

Two other community members expressed concern about the sale of small, airplane-sized bottles of liquor. Although stores such as Bartell Drugs and QFC are being strategic in the placing and manner in which they sell liquor, small bottles have not been addressed yet.