Los Angeles thwarts family in fight over graffiti
Jacob Antonio Jr.
Highland Park owners had a mural painted to deter taggers. But the city painted it over and the taggers are back.
In today’s installment of Read It and Weep: Your Tax Dollars at Work, we visit a besieged Highland Park mom-and-pop grocery store owned by the Antonio family.
The Antonios can only guess at the number of times they’ve begun their day with a can of paint brushing over fresh graffiti left on the side of their store by taggers.
“Maybe 70 times,” said Jacob Antonio Jr., 27. His father, Jacob, begged to differ “More than 100 times,” he said with exasperation.
They learned that if you hired the right muralist, the taggers would respect the work and not mess with the mural. So they shelled out $3,000 to hire a team that included a guy known as Playboy Eddie and Israel “Ezra” Cervantes.
In no time at all, Los Paisanos market had a praying Virgin Mother on a front corner along with “Jesus Saves.” On the side of the bright yellow building was a colorful but edgier painting that looked like a two-headed 
serpent slithering through a junk yard. Just above that was a more traditional rural scene, with a couple of paisanos in sombreros.
All in all, it wasn’t quite the mural the Antonios had in mind, and they weren’t sure what the snakes represented. But after years of torment, they were in a compromising mood. To the relief of the entire Antonio family, the taggers didn’t come near the mural. But three months into the respite, an even more menacing monster reared its ugly head.
City Hall bureaucracy.