The billboard has stirred the political pot down on Grand Avenue for the past month and now it’s been targeted.
The ad shows President Donald Trump with mushroom clouds and swastika dollar signs behind him. However, it’s been apparently shot at with dozens of paintballs. Last week shop owners noticed the marks all over the sign.
"The people who paintballed it. It's not their property. They have a right to express their opinion but they have to do it through the proper channels,” said Susan Nichols of Yoga Styles.
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Nichols adds she doesn’t know who shot the sign up. The other local businesses ABC15 talked to echoed the same sentiment.
Beatrice Moore, who owns the property under the billboard, declined to comment.
Arizona Rep. Kelly Townsend says she doesn’t regret a Facebook post she posted the week the billboard went up that insinuated it would be a good idea to shoot it with a paintball gun.
The Facebook post, which said the billboard looked "like a great place to practice your paintball skills...", has since been deleted.
Townsend is a representative for Arizona’s 16th district. She tells ABC15 the comment was said in jest, and that she doesn’t regret her statement, even though she deleted the post. She says whoever did the damage did so on their own, and she isn’t going to back down over “political correctness.”
