As we predicted, Peter Vallone Jr. is no fan of All City NRG and he’s back on the stump saying so. The Queens Councilmember believes the ripped off, graffiti themed packaging on the energy drink promotes vandalism, and not one to miss an opportunity to hate on graffiti, Vallone held a press conference yesterday to attack the drink and its manufacturer Arizona.

“How low can a company go in search of profits? What’s next, are they going to have an energy drink called Car Jack?”

“If this drink was called ‘pickpocket pickup,’ and had pictures of criminals lifting wallets, wouldn’t people be offended?”

Vallone held the press conference outside a Queens store, the one and only, that has pulled the drink from shelves and hopes others follow suit, saying, “Don’t stock Arizona, don’t buy Arizona. This company is despicable and it doesn’t deserve to make a profit by glorying crime.” Unfortunately for Vallone, this attack will probably help boost those profits.

Screen capture from NY1.

Is this deja-vu? Just like in 2005, when he attempted to stop Marc Ecko’s Chelsea block party which promoted his video game, Getting Up, with graffiti artists painting flat subway car mock-ups, Queens councilmember Peter Vallone Jr. is going after Adidas. As part of their End to End Project they’ve invited seven graffiti artists to paint a fake subway car across from their store.

“Graffiti has nothing to do with sneakers, so basically it’s just another despicable corporation trying to look edgy by promoting a crime in search of profits,” said Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. (D-Astoria), a longtime anti-graffiti crusader.

Unless he’s making a bigger statement about sneaker companies co-opting graffiti, it’s hard to miss the graffiti/sneaker connection (ie. graffiti covering every shoe in the Adidas collection). And we’re pretty sure Adidas is promoting the sneakers with the crime graffiti artists painting legal panels and not the other way around.

You can see the artists including SILOETTE, SMART, SCIEN, CAN2, ATOM, SKORE, and RIME (who we recently interviewed) painting all day on the northwest corner Houston and Lafayette St.

Update: Adidas one upped Ecko with a three dimensional subway car model, not a plywood cutout.

Adidas press photo and sneaker by Rime.

In case you forgot Councilmember Peter Vallone Jr. hates graffiti, the New York Times reminds you and highlights a few moments in his war on graffiti.

• Insane Twon paints “profanity-laced epithets” on a billboard off the Manhattan Bridge.

• Incensed subway riders target Vallone with fake subway signs. “It would say something like, ‘N service is suspended this weekend and Peter Vallone is a punk,” recalls Vallone. (Lucky for you, the MTA Service Notice Generator still works)

• Animal New York publishes Vallone’s home address. “The councilman forwarded the posting to the police.”

Probably most sensible of everyone in the article is Marc Ecko, who Vallone unsuccessfully tried to stop from holding a street fair with graffiti on fake subway signs in 2005:

“Vallone has created a persona as this guy who’s righting the wrongs in the city. I’d like to see him address issues that are harder to clean up, like violent crime and education.”

Following his arrest one year ago for tagging up Astoria, graffiti artist, Kiko, plead guilty yesterday and was sentenced to 6 months in jail, 5 years probation, a $25,000 fine, and community service. Sounds tough? Not tough enough for Councilmember Peter Vallone Jr. who requested Kiko be sent to state prison for one to three years. It’s no surprise that Vallone hates graffiti artists and they hate him right back.

When the Daily News trailed Vallone for a day in June 2006, he told them, “Don’t put my address in the paper. We’ll have graffiti all over it tomorrow.” The Daily News may have protected Vallone’s privacy, but his own office sure didn’t. Animal Magazine got Vallone’s home address with a simple phone call so you can stop by and “exercise your 1st Amendment writes.”

As the First Post said from across the pond:

“If you want to be assured of immortality in the fleeting annals of graffiti, all you need to do is spray paint on the door of New York City councilman, Peter Vallone Jr.”

Last week, Councilmember Peter Vallone Jr. wrote in the Daily News of the “almost Sodom and Gomorrah atmosphere” in Chelsea clubs. Few proposed measures from the City Council come as a surprise. They purport to improve security by improving surveillance. The NYPD is recommending ID scanners to weed out fake ids as well as record each person entering a club. Surveillance cameras (unmanned of course) would similarly invade patron’s privacy by tracking their comings and goings. Vallone explains the most important aspect of club security:

“Nightclub safety begins with the bouncers. They are the ones who decide who goes in, and more importantly who doesn’t. People look to them for help, especially those who are rendered vulnerable by alcohol.”

Adding more security staff might help, especially if they’ve been licensed, or at the bare minimum, have not been convicted of seven felonies. Although, hiring off-duty police officers might be money better spent.

Despite Vallone’s recognition that people are getting crunk up in Chelsea (or “rendered vulnerable by alcohol”), Councilwoman Melinda Katz wants to outlaw bottle service “because it makes people overly drunk.” Their takeaway message seems to be: on a 1 to 10 scale of drunkenness, be a 7. Without bottle service, you should learn to double fist and figure out another way to separate yourselves from the lowly have-nots.

Proving that even in Chicago it all come back to real estate, Chicagoist quotes Harlan Powell, an attorney representing clubs served violation notices for illegal bottle service:

“What customers are buying is not the actual drink, they’re buying real estate.”

Bottle Service! image from damndoozy.

Advice for aspiring New York graffiti writers, from across the pond:

“If you want to be assured of immortality in the fleeting annals of graffiti, all you need to do is spray paint on the door of New York City councilman, Peter Vallone Jr.”

Hitting a billboard off the Manhattan Bridge works pretty well too.

This morning, the Daily News featured a day in the life of Queens Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. Vallone is perhaps, best known for his vehement hatred of graffiti. He was a critic of Cope2’s Time Magazine Billboard and an opponent of Marc Ecko’s street party, which featured artists painting 48-foot-long replicas of 1980s NYC subway cars. Obviously, not everyone is a fan.

Vallone has been the target of irate graffiti “taggers” - getting threatening voice-mail messages and a two-story tall graffiti dedication on a movie billboard near the Manhattan Bridge - since pushing laws that make it illegal to own graffiti tools.

The seven foot tall message from Insane Twon said ‘Fuck Vallone.’ While the exaggeration of scale is admissible, let’s not kid ourselves about the meaning of this message.

Excessive graffiti focus not withstanding his day seems pretty typical. until 3:30 PM when he goes off the radar for nearly four hours. We can only speculate what he was up to: sleeping under the desk, stalking graffiti writers, thwarting art school students buying supplies? Hopefully, the Daily News will come clean. Also did they really spend the full 12 hours shadowing him?

Developing…

Photo detail from Untitledname.com.