Fired up! New Yorkers fume after graffiti vandal defaces dozens of businesses with SMOKE

Where there’s smoke, there’s ire.Upper West Side residents are burning up after a hoodlum spray-painted the word “SMOKE” on dozens of businesses spanning more than 20 city blocks of Columbus Avenue on the Upper West Side.“It was on bus shelters, buildings, garbage cans, everything.It was horrible.

I mean, I never, to be honest with you, I’ve never seen a tag like this, and I’ve seen a lot of graffiti,” City Councilwoman Gale Brewer fumed.The “SMOKE” tag, first spotted Monday, spread like a virus from 72nd to 96th streets, with some 30 buildings defaced.“It’s not good for business, it’s not their building, it makes it look trashy,” said Layla Ross 21, a sales associate at Pet Market on 93rd Street, whose workplace escaped the vandal’s spray can.Ella Social restaurant, on 72nd and Columbus, had its pricey outdoor canopy defaced the day after it was installed.“It’s crazy, it’s so sad, so bad we just put it up yesterday it was expensive,” said Marianne, a waitress.“It’s not the first time, this area, it’s very bad.Very bad for business,” said Columbus Cafe owner Ahmed Elzabair, whose business was also tagged.Elzabair, 52, has been battling vandals for the 23 years he’s been operating the cafe.

“We used to have a gate, but it had so much graffiti we had to get rid of it,” he said.Brewer said her office reported the incident to the authorities, and the city Department of Sanitation responded swiftly — but at a cost of thousands to taxpayers.The agency sent a crew of three workers who spent three full days cleaning up after the paint punk.“We know graffiti is a blight on our neighborhoods, and we work every day to clean unwanted graffiti on walls, fences and other surfaces across the five boroughs, resolving nearly 18,000 service requests this calendar year to date,” said Sanitation spokesman Vincent Gragani.

The city spends upwards of $2.7 million a year on graffiti removal.While the Upper West Side sizzles with...