Three weeks after its unveiling, the Beach Boys monument in Hawthorne, California, was tagged by graffiti artists. Sometime between 6:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. last Friday, the word "Choli" was spray-painted in black across the twenty-feet-long brick structure, along with illegible squiggles.

"I was told this might happen, so I'm not surprised," says Al Jardine, who dedicated the monument alongside fellow former Beach Boys Brian Wilson and David Marks on May 20th.

The tag was removed immediately. Unfortunately, the process also lifted paint from several bricks inscribed with the names of donors to the project. That paint is being reapplied.

The identity of the defacers is unknown.

"My gang officer said it was the first time he'd seen that tag," says Hawthorne Mayor Larry Guidi, who received the complaint from a city planning commissioner residing next door to the monument.

"I just went ballistic," Guidi said. "This is the pride and joy of the city."

Every day since its dedication, the monument has been patrolled by squad cars at 6:30 a.m. Now, in addition, the mayor said, the commissioner has agreed to have a Webcam installed on his property, so police can monitor the site twenty-four hours a day.

Guidi's response also includes an ordinance instituting a mandatory $1,000 fine for taggers (previously, fines were court-imposed). And the mayor says he's looking into coating the structure with a paint-resisting sealant.

The Beach Boys monument was built by Dennis Wilson's construction-engineer son, Scott, on the site of the demolished house where Brian, Carl and his dad grew up (now a California landmark). It features a stone image of the Beach Boys' Surfer Girl album cover, embedded in a brick wall adorned with a commemorative plaque.

"Graffiti is a territorial expression," says Jardine, who grew up a few blocks away. "Maybe we're on someone else's territory."