Fourteen days, two ways to respond — and one way to ruin a wall
Victoria's graffiti rules live in its Property Maintenance Bylaw (07-050): once served notice, a property owner has 14 days to remove the graffiti or appeal the City's proposed action. Do neither and the outcome is a fine, or the City removes it and bills you. It's a clean, predictable process — with one complication the bylaw doesn't mention: in this city, the wall itself is often the harder problem.
The heritage catch
- Old Town's brick and stone are irreplaceable — some of Canada's best-preserved Victorian commercial streetscapes, where sandblasting or harsh stripping does permanent damage worth far more than any tag
- The 14-day clock doesn't care about your surface — which pressures owners toward fast, aggressive removal. That's precisely backwards on heritage masonry
- Heritage-safe removal fits inside the window — spot-testing, gentle chemical lifting and low-pressure rinsing are a schedule, not a delay: booked on day one, done well before day fourteen
Our sensitive-surface methods — the same discipline we apply in Gastown and Winnipeg's Exchange District — exist for exactly these blocks.
Downtown has help worth knowing about
The Downtown Victoria Business Association runs a graffiti program for its members — if your property is in the DVBA area, check what your membership covers. Where their scope ends (upper surfaces, rear elevations, properties outside the zone, heritage-grade work), professional removal with documentation picks up.
The Island playbook
Photograph everything before touching it, keep the notice, book removal immediately, and keep the dated before/after record — the same compliance file that works in every city we serve. Victoria, Saanich, Oak Bay, Esquimalt and the Westshore are all covered territory; text a photo of your notice to (778) 200-8343 and the deadline becomes our problem.