More anti-Semitic graffiti, vandalism in Pearl River

PEARL RIVER – A local farm and garden center was vandalized and peppered with anti-Semitic and vulgar graffiti over the weekend, just one week after a similar incident outside a North Lincoln Street home.

Jim Van Houten, owner of Van Houten Farms on Sickletown Road, said the vandals caused extensive damage, overturning potted plants, damaging sprinkler heads and cash registers, and even letting Cocoa, the farm's 15-year-old rabbit, out of her cage. The farm's flagpole was torn down — the U.S. flag lay under muddy footprints.

Van Houten said it wasn't until Orangetown police arrived that they also noticed the graffiti, consisting of swastikas and profanity spray-painted on his greenhouses.

"Very disheartening, to say the least," Van Houten said. "I just hope that this group, either they have an epiphany of their own or somebody figures out who they are. Just stop this ridiculous action, because at some time it's going to go to extremes and something serious is going to result from it."

Van Houten said workers found the damage about 8:30 a.m. Sunday. Bottles of mosquito repellent had been punctured and sprayed throughout. Plants lay overturned or uprooted and a charger for a digital scale was shattered. Sprinkler heads were kicked and broken, and Cocoa was not in her cage — although the longstanding farm mascot returned on her own the following day.

Orangetown police said in a release Monday that the investigation "is continuing," and that "it is undetermined if this incident is connected to a similar incident that happened on July 27, 2014, on Lincoln Avenue."

In that case, swastikas and racist epithets were spray-painted on vehicles whose tires were also slashed. The words "white power" were sprayed on one vehicle, which homeowners said "was done by angry people."

Homeowners in that incident are Jewish. Van Houten is not, leading him to wonder if the vandals have a racial purpose in spraying swastikas on his greenhouse "or whether they just think it's something to draw."

"Any kids that are going to be doing this are probably not the most academic in the world," he said. "I question whether they even understand what it means."

Twitter: @jfitzgibbon