The task of removing graffiti is estimated to cost the local council some €500,000 a year, and in recent days ‘tags’ have appeared on several national monuments in the city.
“This is a serious matter and, although it is not new, it had not happened with this intensity and lack of taste,” the mayor, Manuel Machado, told Lusa News Agency.
“Even when the [Maoist] MRPP entertained itself scribbling slogans on walls, at least one could note a certain aesthetic sense. What we see today is a mess.
“It’s unacceptable, it should be punished, it is a crime.”
Machado said that a video surveillance system was “one of the tools” that could be used to combat the problem.
Machado cited the São Salvador church as one of example of a monument whose façade has become covered in graffiti phrases and tags.