'We're PROUD of Justin Bieber's graffiti!': Hotel bosses in Australia praise pop star despite government complaint

PUBLISHED: 11:49 EST, 28 November 2013 | UPDATED: 11:52 EST, 28 November 2013

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An Australian hotel is declaring itself a graffiti Belieber, despite being at odds with the city government.

QT Hotel in the Gold Coast said it gave Justin Bieber permission to spray graffiti on its wall. The Canadian singer and others posted images online showing cartoon faces in fluorescent paint on an outdoor wall at the hotel in Queensland state.

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After hearing criticism, the hotel changed its Facebook page cover art Thursday to show Bieber, his graffiti and the declaration: 'He asked, and we said YES.'

The Gold Coast mayor Tom Tate says the singer risked undermining the city's efforts to fight graffiti.

'The last thing we want is to have graffiti glorified and more young people thinking it's a cool thing to do,' he said.

In a letter to the hotel, Tate asserted the city can insist on removal of graffiti in private spaces if it's visible from public spaces.

But in further posts on its Facebook page, QT Hotel defended Bieber as an excellent hotel guest and said it wanted to promote graffiti as an art form. It invited artists to share examples of their work to be judged, with select artists being offered a hotel wall they could spray-paint themselves.

Bieber performed in Brisbane on Wednesday and has more concerts in Sydney on Friday and Saturday.

The 19-year-old pop star arrived in Australia after a troubled Latin American tour.

He apologized to Argentinians after images appeared to show him dragging that country's flag across the stage with his feet. He quit one concert early after apparently contracting food poisoning, and police in Brazil want to question him about another graffiti incident there.

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Evil NP, HK, Hong Kong, 8 hours ago

The hotel must have missed the message earlier that Banksy wasn't coming!!! Since just because someone famous "tagged" your wall doesn't mean its now going to be worth millions...

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CC, Gold Coast Australia, 10 hours ago

I live in the city where this horrible graffiti has been painted. The fact is, if they want to promote graffiti then it should be contained inside the walls of their hotel, not outside in public view. It needs to be cleaned off immediately and if not then I hope the hotel is fined by the Council. How would our city look if we all decided we wanted to do this to the outside walls of our homes and businesses? It is ugly and should not be there. Our city spends millions every year trying to rid graffiti from public areas and for this to be allowed to remain is simply not acceptable to the citizens of this city.