Homeless in Vancouver: No more pipelines graffiti at 1400 West Broadway

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      The anti-pipeline message that was drizzled in pink paint along the south sidewalk of the 1400 block of West Broadway on Friday (June 24) is now gone, more or less.

      A team of two from the City of Vancouver’s graffiti removal contractor showed up just before noon on Friday (June 30).

      One of them explained to me how they planned to simply pressure wash the paint off the sidewalk, with a little help from chemical pretreatment if need be.

      It took less than half an hour to expunge the over-20 metre-long protest message, which originally read: “Stop the pipelines!”

      It does look as though the message was first traced over with some kind of cleaning solvent. Many letters temporarily remain legible as cleaner areas of concrete—an unintentional form of reverse graffiti.

      No doubt the ease of removal was at least partly due to the nature of the graffiti itself, which I’m sure was made with a water-based paint.

      No self-respecting anti-pipeline protesters would use an oil-based paint, would they?

      Stanley Q. Woodvine is a homeless resident of Vancouver who has worked in the past as an illustrator, graphic designer, and writer. Follow Stanley on Twitter at @sqwabb.

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