Community on alert after businesses 'plagued with graffiti,' police say

BLACK MOUNTAIN, N.C. (WLOS) — The town of Black Mountain is cracking down on taggers and vandals that police say are leaving their mark around town.

According to the Black Mountain Police Department, the town of approximately 8,400 residents has been hit by a recent spree of incidents that have gotten the attention of locals, businesses and now law enforcement.

“We don’t care if you’re a teenager or an adult," Black Mountain Police Major Chris Kuhn said. "We will prosecute you if we can identify you.”

Identifying taggers is exactly what they’re setting out to do.

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Ricky Allison is a long time employee of Napa Auto Parts. They were the target of two recent tagging incidents, back to back.

“We had the whole side of the building with graffiti on it and we had to paint it,” says Allison. “The next time they got our sign out front.”

Nearby, the Coach House Seafood and Steak Restaurant was hit by vandals on Easter weekend. The culprits were responsible for destroying electrical, air conditioning and refrigeration units located on the outside of the building with no apparent reason. No valuables were taken and they didn’t enter the business.

Evan Pappas works at the local eatery owned by his parents and shared how upset he was by the incident.

“It just sucks to think there are people out there that are doing this for no purpose, that are out for destruction and with malicious intent," Pappas says.

Police are not taking any of the recent incidents lightly.

“Business owners are impacted by that," Major Kuhn says. "The town’s impacted by that when it damages our property.”

Now, in an effort to better identify taggers, police are asking residents to get handy with their cameras and take pictures and videos when they see a likely tagger in action. The hope is that more people will be on the lookout and help put a name and a face to those willing to deface public and private property. So far, the effort’s worked.

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“That did help us identify some of the suspects that we have identified,” says Kuhn. He adds that there are more out there.

He’s hoping townspeople will jump to the opportunity to stop taggers and vandals in the effort to maintain the beauty of Black Mountain.

“We value our town, the beauty of our town," Kuhn says. "That’s what attracts people here. We get visitors from all over the state, all over the world. We want our town to be beautiful.”

If you have any information about taggers in and around Black Mountain, you're asked to contact the police department one of the following ways:

• By phone: 828-419-9350
• Online here
• On Facebook here