By: Meyer Wolfsheim

Upper West Side residents and business owners are fuming after a vandal went on a brazen graffiti spree, spray-painting the word “SMOKE” across dozens of storefronts and public surfaces along Columbus Avenue, as the NY Post reported.

The destructive tag, first noticed earlier this week, stretched for more than 20 city blocks — from West 72nd Street up to West 96th Street — defacing roughly 30 buildings, according to the NY Post. Bus shelters, garbage cans, restaurant canopies and building facades were all hit in what locals described as one of the most extensive graffiti incidents the neighborhood has seen in years.

“It was on bus shelters, buildings, garbage cans, everything,” City Councilwoman Gale Brewer told the NY Post. “It was horrible. I’ve never seen a tag like this, and I’ve seen a lot of graffiti.”

Small businesses were among the hardest hit. Columbus Cafe, a longtime neighborhood staple, woke up to find its exterior marked by the vandal’s spray paint, the NY Post reported. Owner Ahmed Elzabair, 52, said graffiti has been a constant battle during his 23 years operating the cafe.

“We used to have a gate, but it had so much graffiti we had to get rid of it,” Elzabair told the NY Post, adding that repeated vandalism takes a toll on both morale and finances.

Nearby, Ella Social restaurant on West 72nd Street and Columbus Avenue was targeted just one day after installing a costly new outdoor canopy, according to the NY Post.

“It’s crazy — so sad,” said Marianne, a waitress at the restaurant. “We just put it up yesterday. It was expensive,” she told the NY Post.

Other business owners worried about the broader impact on the area. Layla Ross, a 21-year-old sales associate at Pet Market on West 93rd Street, said even stores that escaped the graffiti feel the consequences.

“It’s not good for business,” Ross told the NY Post. “It’s not their building, and it makes the neighborhood look trashy.”

Councilwoman Brewer said her office quickly reported the vandalism to city agencies, prompting a rapid response from the Department of Sanitation, the NY Post reported. A three-person cleanup crew spent three full days scrubbing paint from public and private property — a costly effort borne by taxpayers.

Sanitation officials emphasized the scale of the problem citywide. “We know graffiti is a blight on our neighborhoods, and we work every day to clean unwanted graffiti,” spokesman Vincent Gragani told the NY Post. He noted the department has already resolved nearly 18,000 graffiti-related service requests this year alone.

The city spends more than $2.7 million annually on graffiti removal, according to figures cited by the NY Post — a price tag that has residents questioning enforcement and accountability.

Adding to frustrations, the “SMOKE” tag appears to be spreading. The same graffiti was spotted days later downtown near West Fourth Street and Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village.