“A 44-year-old man who allegedly included his phone number in a sex-solicitation message written on the wall of a La Mesa restroom was arrested at his home, police said Sunday. Michael Shima was booked into the Central Jail on suspicion of drug possession and disorderly conduct, a jail clerk said… On Friday night, a police officer spotted the message, written on the wall of a men’s room at Sunshine Park, LMPD Lt. Bobby Barrett said. The message writer was seeking sex with a young man, Barrett said. Investigators traced the number to Shima, who is on probation and had surrendered his Fourth Amendment rights against search and seizure, Barrett said. Police who searched Shima’s home seized adult pornography, methamphetamine, drug paraphernalia and two computers, Barrett said.” —North County Times (US)

It is difficult to believe that anybody could get arrested for leaving his phone number on the wall of a public toilet. It must be a matter of demographics. La Mesa is a suburb of San Diego that calls itself the Jewel of the Hills. It must not have much crime if its police are targeting the scrawlers of lovelorn graffiti. Here in New York, if you arrested every guy who posted his — or maliciously posted somebody else’s — phone number on a toilet wall, you’d probably end up with a prison population larger than the city of La Mesa itself.

Besides which, New Yorkers come to appreciate this sort of graffiti as an art form in its own right. Granted, a lot of graffiti lacks any real imagination, but sometimes it can really be comic or creative. Few movie posters in the subway escape the rapier wit of impromptu film critics armed with Sharpies or spray paint. Few people can post graffiti classifieds on toilet walls without getting razzed by the next sarcastic defecator. The vertical surfaces of the city are kind of like craigslist without the internet: a primitive place to communicate with random passersby and strangers. It’s part of the local color.

Granted, as is always the case with various endeavors, sometimes people go too far. It’s annoying to see some idiot’s “tag” sprawled across the facade of one of the local landmarks. Leave the Empire State Building untainted by spray paint, please. But on the other hand, public restrooms and subway stops should be free for scrawling. And if you’re going to impugn somebody for writing on a toilet wall, impugn him not for his lust but for his ability or inability to entertain. For graffiti is the poor man’s public art, and it should be judged not by legal but by aesthetic standards — which is to say, not by the police but by the public.

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