Sometimes the city of Asheville just barks up the wrong sidewalk.
Allow me to explain. August J. Dachshund, known as Auggie to friends and family, is locked in a dispute with the city over his sidewalk chalk art, although on a recent unseasonably warm day he seemed completely oblivious to the controversy.
OK, he was seriously distracted by a jar of crunchy treats, but Virginia Harding’s 15-year-old pup remains one cool customer, despite the city power-washing away his sidewalk art each day over the past few weeks. Auggie started chalking out his political statements and his likeness by Harding’s house five years ago, and was left blissfully alone — until Asheville Public Works busted out the pressure washer last month.
If you’re starting to sniff out a ridiculous conflict brewing, your absurdity sensors are working just fine. You see, every day Auggie has left a chalk likeness of himself on a square of sidewalk on the Fulton Avenue side of Harding’s home, which fronts East Chestnut Street in north Asheville.
The drawings usually include a political message, as you can see by these recent samples, always signed, “Auggie:”
“Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.” – John Lewis
“Elon Musk says “The fundamental weakness of western society is empathy.” I say it’s a—s like Elon Musk.”
“Chaos isn’t efficiency.”
“Why did that elderly orange dude deliver the address instead of President Musk.”
“Hey friends, maybe if you all write on your sidewalks, the city will stop harassing me.”
“Ukraine is the good guy.”
“Trump is an absolute disgrace.”
“First they came for the dachshunds, and I said nothing because I was not a dachshund.”
“All hail DJT, whose glorious visage belongs on both Mt. Rushmore and a new $250 bill.” Magauggie
And this one, which seems to sum up how Auggie, Harding, and a lot of their neighbors feel:
“I guess the city has nothing better to do than powerwashing this sidewalk.”
That spawned an anonymous reply: “Divisive graffiti.”
What we have here, as Harding says, is a “freedom of bark” issue. Auggie has even been using the hashtag “freedom of bark” lately, as he continues to doggedly pursue his art (you can find his artwork on Instagram under “augustjdachshund). OK, maybe Harding helps with the drawing and writing, as she is the one with opposable thumbs.
“We try and go with the dog theme as often as possible,” Harding said.
Auggie began his sidewalk art career around age 10.
“He didn’t care about politics one whit when he was a little guy,” Harding said. “Somehow, in 2016 he woke up to this whole thing and started becoming a little political activist dachshund. That’s his story.”
The artwork emerged in 2020, but trouble didn’t come until this year — Feb. 19 to be precise, and it wasn’t the good kind the late civil rights activist and congressman John Lewis recommended.
One particularly anti-Trump message that stated, “Does the orange dotard really not remember that Russia attacked Ukraine?” seemed to generate the heat.
Harding said a city worker was watching the installation that morning and asked if it were chalk or paint. She said it was chalk, and the worker drove off without taking action.
“Five hours later, two guys came by and power washed the sidewalk,” Harding said. “Then a few days later, somebody wrote, ‘100 percent pro-DJT.’ Now, no one has ever written on the sidewalk before, except way back in COVID, where there were a couple of people who didn’t like the anti-vax messages.”
The DJT message occurred Feb. 25. Harding, I mean Auggie, responded with something along the lines of, “Bless your delusional little heart.”
That day and every one since, a city crew has pressure washed Auggie’s messages off the sidewalk. Sometimes they bring two trucks.
City attorney: Drawings technically are graffiti
You see, sidewalk chalk artwork like this is technically considered graffiti.
“City staff are charged with administering city ordinances, including those related to graffiti,” City Attorney Brad Branham told me via email.
City code defines graffiti as follows:
“Writings, drawings, inscriptions, figures or marks of paint, ink, chalk, dye or other similar substances on public or private buildings, sidewalks, streets, structures, or places which are not authorized or permitted by the property owner or possessor. For the purposes of this chapter, graffiti shall include drawings, writings, markings or inscriptions regardless of the content or nature of materials used in the commission of the act.”
The ordinance notes it does not “prohibit temporary, easily removable chalk or other water soluble markings which are used in connection with traditional children’s activities such as drawings of bases for ball games, hopscotch and similar activities, nor does it include temporary, easily removable markings used in connection with any lawful business or public purpose or activity and markings used to denote the location of underground utility infrastructure and those used in conjunction with establishing survey control data and location points by survey crews.”
So there are some reasonable exceptions – just not for Auggie’s messages.
“This definition (of graffiti) includes the type of cartoons mentioned in your question, if done without the consent of the property owner,” Branham said. “In the case of public streets and sidewalks, that would mean the city.”
I also asked Branham about the First Amendment issue here.
“You raise a concern about First Amendment infringement,” Branham said. “However, the issue must be considered through the inverse lens.”
“When considering any activity encompassing speech, regulations upon that activity generally need to be content neutral,” Branham said. “If city staff were to review the ‘content’ and type of unpermitted markings upon public property before deciding whether or not to remove such, it would necessarily expose the city to First Amendment challenges. Therefore, if the city is going to regulate graffiti, it must do so equally and evenly, in accordance with local law, but also federal constitutional law.”
This is not looking good for Auggie. I suggest he hire a really tough Doberman as counsel.
Seriously, Branham did seemingly throw Auggie a bone, but not an exception.
“Some displays may appear more artistic and harmless to some, but perhaps not so to others,” Branham said. “As a public governmental entity, the city must refrain from drawing such distinctions. In other words, if we regulate some graffiti, we must regulate it all.”
Not surprisingly, Harding finds this ridiculous.
“There’s graffiti everywhere — there’s ‘Dad Bod’ on every surface,” Harding said, referring to a ubiquitous graffiti tag around town. “And they’re claiming that somehow, if they leave this sidewalk, this message on the sidewalk, it’s going to encourage other graffiti, which is just ridiculous. They know it’s not true.”
Harding has also had a spirited email conversation with Chad Bandy, streets manager with the Public Works Department. Bandy explained the city’s policies in a March 3 email.
“We often remove graffiti that is popular among the community and may seem harmless or even entertaining,” Bandy wrote. “With that said, we do not try to determine what may be art or enjoyable vs what may be offensive or unwanted. If we were to make those determinations we would always be wrong in someone’s eyes. Because of this we have to remove the graffiti as we find it.”
Bandy said the department tries to remove graffiti as soon as it finds it. He stressed that Auggie’s case is “not targeted removal, rather it is now a case of known repeated graffiti that we can’t knowingly turn our eyes away and let remain when we are actively cleaning other places.”
Neighbors: ‘It’s like the spirit of Asheville — and we love Auggie’
The court of public opinion clearly seems to favor Auggie. Harding said her neighbors in Five Points look forward to the messages, and feedback, even from those on the opposite end of the political spectrum, is generally appreciative.
“There’s a neighbor who’s like, ‘You know, I only agree with your messages maybe 50 percent of the time, but I love reading them,’” Harding said. “Nobody in the neighborhood is having a problem with it.”
When I visited, a steady stream of neighbors and exercisers strolled by and, unprompted, offered sympathy to Harding — and some light invective for the city.
“Don’t they have better things to do?” Jenn Finan said. “It’s good artwork for starters, and it’s like the spirit of Asheville — and we love Auggie.”
Finan was walking her dog, Chip, and pushing her 7-month-old son, Calvin, in his stroller. Finan understands that the city considers it graffiti, but she questions the allocation of manpower to the daily task of pressure washing it off.
“We had a broken manhole cover for 2 1/2 years, and it took them two years to get it fixed,” she said. “If sidewalk chalk art gets erased in 24 hours, and something that’s actually hazardous takes two yeast to get fixed, that shows a little mismatch in priorities, I’d say.”
Jey Hiott said she walked by the sidewalk Monday and saw two trucks had pulled over with workers who were washing Auggie’s artwork. Using so many resources seemed ridiculous to her.
Dick Duccini said simply, “It’s crazy.”
“Do they do this with little girls drawing butterflies on the sidewalk?” he said. “Just a waste of resources. And it’s political — this is just retaliation against peaceful protest.”
Chris McLaughlin and his wife, Lousie Taylor, moseyed by. He suggested the chalk erasers “must be the ‘Muskrats.”
“They’re not erasing ‘Dadbod,’” Taylor said.“I think it’s a waste of resources. It seems to me there are so many other things they should be doing.”
So for now, Auggie remains in a stalemate with the city.
“The options are sort of like, we keep doing this ad nauseam — every day I write the message, every day they erase the message, and then what happens?” Harding said, speaking, I’m sure, on behalf of Auggie. “Or I stop writing the messages. And people have suggested putting up a chalkboard, which I don’t necessarily want to do.”
I asked Auggie what his plans are, and he simply said, “More treats!”
I told him this impasse is likely to continue, and asked how he felt about being in a stalemate with the city.
“Don’t they have anything better to do?” he said.
One of Auggie’s posts last week read, “Maybe if I tagged every surface with “Dadbod” the city would ignore me too.”
It was signed “Dogbod.” I think he’ll be safe now.
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