River Road vandal arrested

Local businesses hit several times by ‘tagging’

A 23-year-old Luling man was arrested last week and charged with layering several local businesses on River Road with graffiti, even coming back to hit some of the businesses again after they had covered it up, according to St. Charles Parish Sheriff’s Office spokesman Capt. Pat Yoes.

Jhen Garcia, of 122 Lussan Lane in Luling, was charged with 12 counts of criminal damage to property by defacing with graffiti, allegedly leaving his mark on signs, buildings and even trash cans. Teddy Gay, owner of Teddy’s Diner & Pizzeria, said his restaurant was vandalized on three separate occasions.

“The first time, he put a hollow outline on the building. Then, he came back another time to fill it in and a third time to add highlights,” Gay said.

Gay said that he is trying to figure out the best way to remove the graffiti and is considering using a high-pressure washer and then repainting. However, that won’t be a cheap process.

“The people I have talked to have said that to do it right would cost between $500 to $1,000,” he said.

Yoes said that’s what makes graffiti such a big problem.

“It’s not something that can be fixed easily because of the surfaces that the graffiti covers,” he said.

St. Charles Parish Sheriff Greg Champagne said that his investigators had a good idea of where the perpetrator lived due to the locations of the graffiti and were making plans for surveillance cameras in the area.

“This apprehension was possible only through the hard, persistent work of some deputies and detectives who literally went door to door in the area looking for clues,” Champagne said. “I have spoken to the D.A.’s office and am hopeful that he will receive some jail time so that we can personally bring him to the locations and make him clean up the damage done.”