“We’re sorry, Bust,” reads a new message on Lewiston’s graffiti wall, painted Thursday by a regretful Brian Serfes, the ne’er-do-well graffiti vandal turned artist, who is now a vandal again.

“Bust” is Serfes’ street name, a christening from previous scrapes with local police. Now it’s the perfect descriptor for his credibility, after he was charged late Wednesday for tagging the Centreville Garage.

About one month ago, Serfes was the first “artist” to sign the city’s amnesty pledge against further illegal tagging, in return for the dedicated wall, a privilege about to be revoked.

The wall’s owner, the 12-Hour Club, is meeting this morning about the wall. Internal divisions have ousted the club’s former leader, Angelo Giberti, who supported the wall, and Mayor Laurent Gilbert is trying to mend fences with club members whose tolerance for hosting graffiti artists is evaporating.

If the club says so, the wall goes.

They are justified: its benefactor, Giberti, is out, and its muse – a fast-talking, mohawked young man, full of promises but little truth – has sprayed his true colors. Other so-called artists have used the wall as canvas for disgusting depictions of genitalia and expressions of slurs.

Why should the club continue to support it?

Because it’s not a bad idea. Lewiston’s new graffiti policies may have been built on unfirm foundations, but the design was sound. Strengthening graffiti penalties while providing a legal outlet for serious “artists” are tactics that should work to curb tagging in L-A, if allowed to continue.

We urge the 12-Hour club to do so.

Serfes acted stupidly. He knew sustaining his creditability, and the credibility of his cause, was predicated on respecting the law. Everybody told him so, and believed his sincerity.

Now, Serfes should earn the law’s maximum punishment.

What’s regrettable is penalizing those who followed him. More than a half-dozen others signed the city’s amnesty pledge after Serfes, promising to forgo illicit spraying for good. This outpouring, in the wall’s nascent days, indicated its merit and, given time, its probable success.

Now the wall could be gone. Unfortunately, this would mean returning all of L-A to vandals, as removing the wall won’t stop further graffiti. Only leaders among those who perpetuate illegal graffiti can help stop it.

Serfes was supposed to be the first.

If the graffiti wall crumbles, he’s likely the last.