Graffiti on Sudbury’s iconic water tower

Graffiti on Sudbury’s iconic water tower

People in Sudbury have been talking all week about the spray-painted graffiti vandalism that has appeared on Sudbury's iconic water tower.

The urban slang word, skoden, is visible on the tower from all across the downtown area.

Sudbury police received a report of the spray-painted graffiti on Tuesday and say this kind of vandalism has been an ongoing problem here in the city over the past few years

"Graffiti is an issue, sometimes it goes unreported. We encourage business owners to report it, when it happens. Take a picture of it and then cover it up as soon as possible.” said GSPS corporate communications coordinator, Kaitlyn Dunn.

If you are caught vandalizing, you can be arrested and charged with the Criminal Code of Canada.

“If you're found guilty, it could be anywhere from restitution, which means paying for the damages or jail time." said Dunn.

Some residents, such as James Lark, are not concerned about the graffiti.

"When I first saw the sign there, skoden, I thought ‘ohhh, someone must have been a little cheerful and decided to go write something on the water tower. And what it means basically is ‘let's go then.’" said Lark.

Other residents, such as Noel Prudhomme, hadn’t even noticed it.

"I did not realize it was written there until a few days ago, when a buddy of mine says, ‘hey look up there, see that on the tower?’ I said ‘well, what's wrong with the tower?’, and he said ‘well look, it's not Sudbury anymore, it's skoden, eh.’" said Prudhomme.

The owner of the water tower is local developer, Dario Zulich, who says he's working on a plan to deal with the vandalism and will have more details next week.