By NICK STEWART
With just five years under its belt, Northern Ontario’s largest graffiti removal business is looking to move beyond its Sudbury origins to other parts of the province, according to co-owner Ray Sasseville.
Despite making very little use of advertisements, Graffiti Wizard has seen such a rise in popularity that places like Sault Ste. Marie and Thunder Bay are already looming on the horizon as potential locations for expansion.
“Business has definitely grown in recent years,” Sasseville says.
“There are more vandals locally, sure, but we’ve got lot more local visibility with our constantly roaming branded vehicles and word of mouth, so I’d say it’s due to a combination of things.”
While some of the company’s clients include private homeowners, 95 per cent of its base is made up of commercial businesses wishing to keep their buildings clear of vandalism. Contracts have also been signed with malls, real estate management firms, as well as all the local school boards, which have brought the company’s employees all over the region, from Wawa to Manitoulin Island.
In fact, the business first got its start on the steps of a local school, where ETC Inc., Sasseville’s industrial dry ice cleaning firm, had been called to help remove some graffiti.
He estimates that the school board had done nearly $1 million worth of damage to their own building by attempting to remove the graffiti by blasting the walls with a combination of high-pressure water, sand and soda. What’s more, the offending text could often be read through the sandblasting.
Due to the non-abrasive quality of its work, the company was contracted to use its dry ice system to clean the sites. However, Sasseville was concerned the elevated costs involved with the process would eventually price him out of this newfound niche.
As a result, he decided to form Graffiti Wizard as an umbrella company, and after some searching, hit upon a low-cost, biodegradable, non-toxic cleaning product from a U.S.-based company. After securing the Northern Ontario rights, focus soon shifted from an interested subsidiary to a full-fledged business of its own.
At first, Sasseville assigned ETC workers to Graffiti Wizard as necessary, though business picked up so swiftly that he had to hire 16 dedicated workers within the first few months. Staffers now travel in crews of four or five, with a handful of crews active at any given time.
Using a combination of pressure washers and the proprietary solution on the affected area, workers are able to strip the graffiti from the surface “in pages, like a book.” The process can take anywhere from a half-hour to several hours, depending on the size of the markings.
In the last year, Sasseville has sought to branch out by incorporating the company so it can be franchised. He’s also instituted a knowledge-sharing website for franchisees, so that particularly effective techniques can be discussed. Although there have been no official takers as of yet, he says several people are currently looking into it, including two individuals in Barrie and a company out of Huntsville.
Sasseville hesitates to say how much of his business comes from “repeat business”, as removal of graffiti from one storefront or building will often find the vandals hitting nearby locations instead.
As most businesses will be tagged by graffiti three times before perpetrators change targets, Sasseville has instituted a new “insurance policy” for clients. For a flat fee, the company will clean graffiti from a building an unlimited amount of times for one year.
However, no one has yet opted for this service, Sasseville says. “Around here, the issue is not at the front of your mind, whereas in Toronto, there’s a bylaw that forces people to remove graffiti on their buildings. We’re hoping people will take it on their own accord to do that kind of thing here.”
