With their flamboyant good looks and strutting ways, roosters tend to attract attention. Usually, that’s a good thing.

In the case of Riverdale’s Rooster coffeehouse — an attractive and much-loved hub of the neighbourhood on Broadview Ave., north of Gerrard St. — it’s also garnered the attention of local graffiti vandals, who kept drawing tags on an exterior laneway-facing wall of the two-storey building.

Last month, a city bylaw officer dropped by and warned Rooster staff that the two tags currently on the wall had to be removed in 60 days, or the city would do it and charge the costs back to the owner.

Shawn Andrews — who co-owns the popular coffeehouse, which arose in late 2009 out of the former site of a rundown variety store — says she intends to comply with the city’s order but questions its effectiveness.

To date, she’s spent hundreds of dollars removing tags. “We started by covering a small, single tag, and every time it has returned it has been larger ... closer to the street, more visible. And the last time it attracted the attention of a second tag. We decided to leave it the last time because we were concerned that we would attract even more vandalism.’’

She did try installing an outside camera, which cost $400 and was vandalized, and motion lights, which don’t seem to be a deterrent.

The current two tags on the dark charcoal wall are not even particularly noticeable, and she wonders why the city is bothering.

“We have a building that has been vandalized — it’s part of living in the city. If I thought that painting over it was going to prevent this (which is the claim), I would just throw a coat of paint over it again ... Now that we are going on to paint it a fourth time in 18 months ... and have actually attracted more vandalizing, this no longer seems a viable solution.’’

Just across from the Rooster is Riverdale Park, which contains a city-owned building with washrooms frequently hit by graffiti vandals. It’s been repainted over and over by the city.

“I’m sympathetic to their problem,’’ Andrews says.

It’s a mutual feeling for Lance Cumberbatch, Toronto’s director of investigation services for the Municipal Licensing and Standards department, who told the Star he “absolutely’’ has sympathy for the small business and residential owners of buildings hit by graffiti vandals.

But unfortunately, someone’s got to pay to remove the graffiti. And that someone happens to be the victimized owner of the building, even if that cost is repeated through return visits from said vandals.

“Someone has to bear that cost,’’ Cumberbatch told the Star. “There’s been a lot of discussions how this can be addressed ... we haven’t come up with something that removes the costs involved.’’

He estimates the cost of graffiti cleanup of city-owned property is about $1 million annually.

Under the city’s Municipal Code, owners of buildings that have been defaced by graffiti — often spray-painted gang “tags’’ — are required to remove the graffiti within 72 hours of getting a notice from the city. Over the winter, however, the code is not enforced, said Cumberbatch, because cold temperatures make it difficult to remove graffiti and repaint.

Of course, despite a City of Toronto website that urges people to send in photos and addresses of buildings besmirched by graffiti, not every business seems to be served with orders to remove it. Richard Marsella, director of the Regent Park School of Music on Queen St. E., near River St., runs the school out of a building with a prominent side wall bearing “tags on it that have been there forever.’’

The tags were already on the wall when a beautiful mural on a large board was donated a number of years back by artist Maureen Walton. There are still old tags beneath it, but Marsella says he hasn’t noticed any new tags there.

At the front of the building, the school has a large storage box facing the street that also has a mural, painted last summer by local students who took music lessons. Marsella says he believes the mural has something to do with the fact it wasn’t tagged. But it didn’t save his mailbox, facing Queen St. E., from being tagged in the past year.

He says he’s never been asked by the city to remove the tags.

Cumberbatch says there is “discretion’’ given in certain circumstances to allow more time for property owners to arrange or do graffiti cleanup. Sometimes the tags are in places difficult to reach, he said. Or there may be a wide area involved.

But now the City of Toronto is one week into its own “spring cleanup’’ of graffiti on city buildings, bridges and other places often tagged.

“We will focus on city assets first before focusing on private property,” Cumberbatch said. “We have to get our own house in order.”

But by the end of April, the city will be turning its sights on private property.

If a property owner doesn’t remove graffiti, the city will do the job and add the cost to the property owner’s tax bill. For a small tag, that could involve a “couple of hundred dollars,’’ says Cumberbatch. For something “more elaborate” it could exceed $1,000.’

The city likes a relatively quick removal because “experts tell us if you clean it up immediately, it discourages the recurrence,’’ says Cumberbatch, although he admits he hears back from owners who deny that.

And what about the vandals?

If police catch them, which he admits is difficult, Cumberbatch says they can be charged with criminal mischief under the Criminal Code. (If the value of the damaged item is over $5,000, the maximum penalty is 10 years in jail; if under $5,000, the maximum is two years in jail.)

The city is also involved in StreetARToronto, a pro-active program to counteract graffiti vandalism with street and mural art, that originated from its Graffiti Management Plan.