When Motörhead’s Lemmy Kilmister passed away in 2015, artist Wes Winship came back from Minneapolis to visit his mother in San Francisco. Winship felt as though a fitting tribute would be to head on down to Ocean Beach with his friend Cory Weisskirk and paint quite a massive 60+ foot mural on a wall.
This year, Winship went back home again and decided to swing by the mural once more to touch things up. Unlike last time, Winship and Weisskirk were arrested by the National Park Service and Winship was given an option – call his 71-year old mom in the middle of the night to let her know what happened or get arrested. Winship went with the latter, because hell hath no fury like a pissed mom.
Ultimately Winship and Weisskirk's case was dismissed by a Superior Court Judge according to SF Gate, and the duo "must pay $2,560 in restitution on top of the bail fees, plane ticket costs and other expenses they’ve racked up in the past two months." Winship doesn't exactly agree.
"I was really pissed at the absurdity of it. It was graffiti on top of graffiti, and there were definitely a lot of fans of (the mural). This is a tribute to a dead man."
Sure this all sucks, but at the same time I'm sure the National Park Service folks weren't stoked that they didn't catch Winship and Weisskirk the first time. So they were likely keeping an eye out, and lo and behold they paid the consequences they likely skirted the first time. I do agree that the mural is pretty badass, but vandalism is still vandalism, unfortunately.
