The most expensive graffiti isn't paint
Ask a storefront owner about their worst graffiti bill and it usually isn't spray paint — it's scratchiti: tags gouged into glass with keys, blades or drill bits, and its chemical cousin, acid etching, done with cream that permanently frosts the surface. Paint sits on glass and comes off cleanly. Scratches and etching are damage to the glass itself. There is nothing to wash away.
Your three options, honestly compared
- Live with it — free, but it reads as neglect and tends to invite more
- Replace the pane — complete fix, but commercial storefront glass runs into the thousands per pane, plus boarding and downtime; ruinous if you're hit repeatedly
- Polish or resurface — possible for shallow scratches, but deep gouges and acid work usually exceed what polishing can honestly fix
The fourth option: never expose the glass again
The economic answer is anti-graffiti window film — an optically clear sacrificial layer over the pane. The next attack scratches or etches the film, and we peel it off and lay a new one: a routine service call instead of a glass replacement. On high-risk frontages (transit-adjacent, nightlife strips, ground-floor washrooms), film typically pays for itself the first time it takes a hit.
If your glass has already been hit: photograph it, replace or film the pane once, and protect it from day one. If you're on a repeated-target block, pairing film with a patrol program keeps the whole frontage — glass and walls — permanently handled.