A mayor has told Justin Bieber to clean up his "mess" after spray painting graffiti on the walls of an Australian hotel.
The Canadian singer was filmed using fluorescent paint on the wall of the QT Hotel wall at Surfers Paradise near Brisbane on Tuesday. Bieber later posted a picture of his work on his Instagram page.
City of Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate ordered the hotel to remove or paint over the graffiti and told Australia’s 7News that Bieber should clean up his mess. He also hand-delivered a clean-up kit to the hotel for the star.
"The last thing we want is to have graffiti glorified and more young people thinking it's a cool thing to do," Tate said on Thursday.
However, Bieber had already left the city by the time Tate arrived so the mayor tweeted the star instead.
"@justinbieber Glad you had a great time on Australia's #goldcoast," he wrote. "Hope to see you back soon to clean up your mess. Make me a #belieber."
The hotel owners posted on their Facebook page Wednesday that they absolutely gave approval" for the graffiti on their property.
"He asked, and we said YES," they wrote next to a picture of the colorful street art.
"This piece of art is now available to be viewed by fans of the artist and we believe that it is a wonderful addition to the colorful Gold Coast arts scene,” the hotel added in a later statement.
The hotel insisted that the local government had no authority to get rid of the graffiti because it is on private property and not accessible from public land.
"It might be on private land, but it's in prominent public view," a spokesman for the local government told The Gold Coast Bulletin newspaper.
Australian "Beliebers" were more forgiving of his artistic efforts.
"He's expressing himself through art," one fan told 7News. "This is just a little thing like graffiti. It's not a big deal."
Earlier this month, the star tagged a wall at the National Hotel in Sao Conrado, Brazil. He also recently left graffiti on a wall in Bogota, Colombia.
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