Robert Sheinaus’ bike is parked on Mountain Avenue’s sidewalk just south of Ft. Lowell. His racks are packed with spray bottles, towels and various other cleaning supplies.

Sheinaus is crouched over a green utility box where he is scrubbing blue graffiti.

Sheinaus is the chairperson of the Hedrick Acres Neighborhood Association and the person behind the Neighbors Organized To Abolish Graffiti (NoTAG) program.

He said he cleans up the graffiti in Hedrick Acres and gives presentations to other neighborhood officials — all without a car.

Sheinaus gave up his car after he moved to Tucson and had two cars totaled.

“The second time it happened I said, ‘It isn’t worth it and I am going to do something different,'” Sheinaus said. “I went car free.”

12 thoughts on “Tucson man cleans graffiti by bike”
  1. I would have liked there to be more to this story. How long has he been cleaning up graffiti? What do his presentations teach others? What's his favorite graffiti cleaner? 🙂 He's doing a hard and mostly thankless service to the Hendrick Acres community, and he definitely deserves recognition.

  2. Thanks for the feedback. I would suggest that you check the link in the story to the NoTAG program, which has all details you were looking for.

    The site also icludes a PDF guide you can download, which tells you what you need and how to clean graffiti.

  3. I would have liked there to be more to this story. How long has he been cleaning up graffiti? What do his presentations teach others? What's his favorite graffiti cleaner? 🙂 He's doing a hard and mostly thankless service to the Hendrick Acres community, and he definitely deserves recognition.

  4. Thanks for the feedback. I would suggest that you check the link in the story to the NoTAG program, which has all details you were looking for.

    The site also icludes a PDF guide you can download, which tells you what you need and how to clean graffiti.

  5. Kudos to Robert! It's nice to see him receiving good publicity for his efforts.

  6. Kudos to Robert! It's nice to see him receiving good publicity for his efforts.

  7. This man DOES not own the properties he is painting over, therefore BY LAW he is commiting the act of graffiti, and vandalism. He must be charged or your legal system is completely morally bankrupt, and unfit to arrest or judge anyone else. BY LAW.

  8. @Jay  From the Tucson Municipal Code,
    Graffiti means initials, slogans, figures, inscriptions, marks, designs or drawings written, spray-painted, etched, sketched or otherwise applied on a sidewalk, wall, building, fence, sign, windows or any other structure or surface without consent of the owner.
    I think the situation is more nuanced that you represented in your post.  What’s your point?  Did Robert paint over something of yours?  Nobody should paint on anything they don’t own ever?  I don’t get it.

  9. @Jay  Also…if you read the article he is not “painting over” anything.  He is using a cleaner to remove the graffiti and just revealing the original paint that is under the tag.  
    On another theoretical note…does allowing one law to be broken (i.e. speeding, rolling a stop sign, jaywalking, etc makes our society “completely morally bankrupt”?  I think that is a hasty generalization trying to incite argument about a person who is obviously performing a community service.

  10. RandomBikeGuy For more on that topic, morally bankrupt, running stop signs, read the post in yesterdays links regarding stops as yields in Fort Collins.  More so the comments than the commentary.  Geez the cagers got riled by the thought that someone, anyone would be getting away with something that they wouldn’t be allowed to do.  All I can say is it’s a slippery slope and a mighty long way to the bottom.  If I could change to behaviours of automobiles in traffic they would be cars obey speed limits always and cars never ever roll right turns and or stops.  
    Robert is great.  He really works at this stuff and he does not advocate painting over tags.  The whole paint match thing is really important to his aesthetic.

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