LEWISTON – Graffiti artists no longer have a legal place to paint in Lewiston.

Less than a year after the 12 Hour Club allowed part of its 120 Lisbon St. building to be used as an official city graffiti wall, club members have said no more. Artists will no longer be able to paint there.

Members of the 12 Hour Club, a downtown alcohol recovery support group, voted this week to shut down the wall, which had been established in an effort to curb graffiti in other parts of the city. Members said neither young graffiti artists nor the city’s adults lived up to the bargain struck last year.

Artists were supposed to stick to the building’s 90-foot, white brick side wall. Instead, they painted both that wall and the off-limits back wall, covering the club’s new back door in a colorful jumble of swear words, initials and doodles.

“Some of the kids were honest and everything but some of them weren’t. They spoiled it for everybody,” said Sherrille Larue, temporary vice president for the club.

At the same time, the city was supposed to give the 12 Hour Club a way to identify which artists were legally allowed to paint on the wall. The city never did, Larue said.

The wall was established last August in city-club partnership. The goal: cut illegal graffiti by giving graffiti artists a dedicated, legal place to show off their work. Artists were allowed to spray paint on the wall as long as they completed eight hours of community service, pledged not to tag other parts of the city, and refrained from painting obscenities on the wall. Eight artists signed up.

To encourage compliance, the city instituted heavy graffiti fines up to $1,000 for people caught spray painting anywhere else.

Graffiti has remained a problem throughout Lewiston since the wall was established eight months ago. Police recently arrested a handful of people they believe are responsible for hundreds of tags and bits of graffiti around Lewiston.

“We’ve made some progress,” Police Chief William Welch said.

Welch said the wall wasn’t around long enough for him to tell whether it was working or not.

Mayor Larry Gilbert, who championed the wall’s creation, believes it helped.

“All that activity, if it wouldn’t have been on that wall it would have been on other walls,” he said.

Gilbert acknowledged that some graffiti artists painted the club’s off-limits back wall. He also agreed with Larue that the club was supposed to have gotten photos of approved artists in order to identify them, though other city officials disagree with that.

Gilbert said it was the Police Department’s responsibility to supply photos. Welch said his department shared graffiti wall sign-up information with the club, but wasn’t responsible for providing pictures.

“I knew nothing about photo IDs,” he said.

Phil Nadeau, deputy city administrator, said the police did just what they were supposed to do by maintaining a basic graffiti wall registration.

“We were never going to get into an ID program,” he said. “The expense for that just didn’t make any sense.”

But whether the city was supposed to provide artist IDs or not, Nadeau said, the club doesn’t need a reason to shut down the wall.

“It’s really not material,” he said. “They shouldn’t be criticized by any member of the public that feels they still want this wall. They’re perfectly within their rights to do this.”

When the city and club created the graffiti wall, the city agreed to paint over the graffiti whenever the club decided it didn’t want to maintain the wall any longer. City officials said they will schedule that painting as soon as possible.

After that, it will be up to the club – as it is for all businesses in Lewiston – to clean up any new graffiti that appears on its walls.

Gilbert isn’t sure whether the city will try to find a new place for a graffiti wall.