See this story at BrooklynDaily.com.
By Colin Mixson
Brooklyn Daily
Sheepshead Bay’s Z Best Car Wash has more to clean than just cars.
Workers say a vandal struck the Coney Island Avenue business between avenues Y and Z when Hurricane Sandy hit the borough last week, scrawling a giant swastika on the Jewish-owned business’ facade.
The apparent bias attack has left both workers and customers on edge.
“We’re worried,” said Z Best owner Russell Shern. “Most of my customers are Jewish, and I don’t know if we should expect this to happen again. It doesn’t look great to have a swastika on your building.”
The vandals didn’t stop with the swastika. Shern believes that whoever scrawled the hate symbol also dotted his facade with hammer strikes, leaving behind several thousand dollars worth of damage.
“We have to patch up the wall and repaint the whole thing,” Shern explained.
A surveillance camera overlooking the marred wall was destroyed when the vandalism took place, so detectives with the NYPD’s Hate Crimes Unit have very little to go on as the investigation continues.
Shern doesn’t know who attacked his business, but suspects neighbors who often complain about the noise coming from the car wash.
“Those are the only people we come into conflict with,” he said.
Anyone with information regarding this incident is urged to contact the NYPD CrimeStoppers unit at (800) 577-8477. All calls will be kept confidential.
Reach reporter Colin MIxson at cmixson@cnglocal.com or by calling (718) 260-4514.