By Meagan Hansen
Business owners in downtown Provo need more than soap and water to clean up graffiti found on their store windows.
Graffiti artists hit more than five businesses with a form of acid-based paint that cannot be removed from glass.
'What they used was an etching component,' said Craig Witham, owner of Los Hermanos, a restaurant in Provo that was hit with the graffiti. 'It wasn''t paint, it was some kind of etching compound.'
Six large windows at Los Hermanos were damaged and will cost between $1,000 and $2,000 each to replace, Witham said.
'We painted flowers and stuff to cover it up temporarily,' Witham said. 'You can''t see it now, but all six windows will be replaced soon,' Witham said.
The windows at Los Hermanos were tagged only with the initials 'RAST,' Witham said.
'We don''t know what it means,' Witham said. 'No one does. RAST was just painted all over our windows. We were lucky though. The people across the street had the same initials, but also had worse things painted.'
Police are also unsure what the initials stand for and they have not indicated if the graffiti is gang related.
Allen''s Camera, and at least two other stores on University Avenue, also sustained damage from the graffiti.
Police first thought the damage was caused by normal spray paint, said Karen Mayne, public affairs officer for the Provo Police Department.
'It wasn''t initially realized by the police or business owners that it wouldn''t come off,' Mayne said. 'It looked like a large marker had done the damage.'
The substance used to paint the graffiti is still unknown, but it may have been etching cream, said Craig Peterson, an employee at Art Glass Specialties, a glass shop in Provo.
'Etching cream has an acid base that eats away the surface of glass,' Peterson said.
The cream is usually used in glass design, and is put on glass that has been masked off in a certain pattern, Peterson said.
'The cream is dissolved in water and the etched glass remains behind,' Peterson said.
Peterson is not sure that the cream was used in the graffiti hit, but said he has never heard of an acid based paint that could do this kind of damage.
The graffiti was painted sometime between Dec. 24 and Dec. 26, but because most businesses were closed Christmas Day, the incident was not reported to police until Dec. 26, Mayne said.
No one has been arrested in relation to the crime.
'We have investigators following leads, but there are no real suspects in the case,' Mayne said.
Juveniles are usually behind this kind of crime, Mayne said, but Provo police say they are still not sure who did this.