One of the new apartment buildings in Beacon - 249 Main Street - was tagged last weekend. The words “Go Home” were spray painted in white over the building and windows. A person who wished to remain anonymous covered up the graffiti with white paper one day after the incident happened. A Little Beacon Blog has reached out to the Beacon Police and to the realtor who represents the property, The Gate House Team at Compass (formerly Gate House Realty), to inquire if the incident had been reported to the police, and if so, if security cameras on Main Street or neighboring businesses had been used to find who did the spray painting. Neither have responded. Baxter built the property.

This is not the first time buildings have been tagged in Beacon by menacing individuals. Last year in January 2020, a handful of businesses were tagged. In that case, 3 New Windsor men and 1 man from Newburgh were taken into custody and charged in relation to vandalism, as reported by the Poughkeepsie Journal, who identified the men after the City of Beacon Police Department shared the information.

Some of the art you see around Beacon on the sides of buildings is a result of covering up unwanted graffiti. Removing the paint is very difficult.

The intent of the message is not clear. Beacon’s real estate has been hot for a while, and is currently pricing out many locals who live here who need to stay in rental units, or want to move from rental units into property they purchase. Some Beaconites are selling directly to each other, and not listing their homes, in order to avoid bidding wars and do their friends a favor to keep their friends in Beacon. One the other hand, some Beaconites are setting the prices very high on their homes, hoping to get cash offers.

Beacon’s Mayor Lee Kyriacou has been resisting the City Council’s push to sign into law the Good Cause Eviction Law, as neighboring towns have, including Newburgh, Poughkeepsie, and Kingston. During the first meeting the City Council had to discuss Good Cause Eviction Law, Beacon’s attorney Nick Ward-Willis of Keane and Beane rushed to silence the discussion and move it to Executive Session, which is when the City Council, Mayor and City Administrator can discuss things in private from the public.

Since then, Councilperson Dan Aymar-Blair has presented a proposal to accept Good Cause Eviction Law, which has the support of many in the public who continuously show up to City Council meetings to voice their support. Mayor Kyriacou, who is a landlord, continues to not support it, saying he defers to the city’s attorney, who is not recommending the law, stating that New York State guidance is needed. However, New York State’s Attorney General Letitia James just stated she supports the law.

Said Letitia in a filmed speech shared with City Limits: “I step before you as someone who was once in poverty…who was once evicted. And so paying the rent — yeah rent is too damn high. So we’ve gotta talk about rent and housing and all the issues that we care about. Yes, we need to pass Good Cause Eviction.”

Airbnb is also a factor in Beacon’s real estate economy. While it is good for some house owners and apartment renters who offer it, it is taking long term rental units and houses off the market. While Beaconites who rent out on Airbnb were deathly afraid of Beacon’s then Building Inspector, Tim Dexter, enforcing code requirements on them and shutting them down under then Mayor Randy Casale’s administration, Beaconites have nothing to fear now. Tim Dexter has since retired, replaced by his then assistant, David Buckley. Under Mayor Kyriacou’s administration, the current Building Inspector took a very different approach to code interpretation, and removed the road-block of fire-safety egress windows or ceiling sprinklers in his interpretation to make offering Airbnb more affordable for homeowners who did not want to invest in such safety features.

Further, Beacon’s City Administrator Chris White says that he spoke with David Buckley, and the two discussed how the Airbnb regulation Beacon passed years ago is unenforceable. There seems to be little desire at the administration level to begin enforcement.

If any such enforcement has happened that you would like to share with ALBB, please do so by contacting us.

One week later, the white paper covering the graffiti is still up on the apartment building, albeit ripped and blowing in the wind. Sadly, the graffiti was done at the building’s “promotional” window, that encourages a passer-byer to “tag” the realtor with a selfie photo.