Magazine under fire for 'graffiti kit'

A lads' magazine that includes a stencil to be used for graffiti has today been slammed for "promoting and encouraging illegal spray painting".

Bizarre magazine is advertising the "Outlaw Graffiti Stencil" on the front cover of this month's edition, and details are given inside its pages on how best to use it. The instructions, printed next to an article in which the writer talks about being arrested on his first foray into graffiti, finish off with the advice: "Don't hang about."

But the controversial stencil has attracted anger from the London Assembly, which is currently recommending that under-18s should be banned from buying spray paints and marker pens to limit the damage caused.

Andrew Pelling, chairman of the graffiti committee at the London Assembly, said that the stencil pull-out was "an example of magazines glorifying illegal graffiti".

He added: "They must know how they can influence people's perceptions and I hope that they will take a more responsible line . . . if they don't do so voluntarily, then pressure should be brought to bear on them from London and national government."

The stencil kit was made exclusively for the magazine by "Banksy", a spray painter who has produced graffiti in seemingly inaccessible places - including inside the giraffe cage at Barcelona Zoo and on the steps of the Tate Gallery on the eve of the Turner Prize. He has also broken into the penguin enclosure at London Zoo and painted: "We're bored of fish - we wanna go home."

Illegal graffiti costs London an estimated £100 million a year.

In an interview with the graffiti artist, the magazine said it aimed to expose the gulf of public misunderstanding between good quality, creative works and mainstream graffiti such as "tagging".

Joe Gardiner, the magazine's editor, said: "Artists such as Banksy combine political commentary with humour to create eyecatching and thought provoking graffiti."

He added: "Hopefully, by including Banksy's stencil, we'll encourage graffiti to move to new levels of public appreciation and acceptability."

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