Racist graffiti spray painted onto South Philadelphia bar

SOUTH PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- The owners of a popular neighborhood bar showed up Wednesday to find offensive language spray painted on the windows.

Unfortunately, they say it's not the first time it's happened.

For three generations the Maglio family has operated the bar at the corner of 16th and McKean streets in South Philadelphia. But lately they've had a lot of problems with vicious, ugly vandalism.

When we met up with Roe Maglio outside the Station Bar & Grill she was already hard at work cleaning up, applying elbow grease to wipe away the racist graffiti spray painted on the windows of the business overnight.

The corner bar has been in her family since the 1950s. It's now run by her son, Lou.

Lou tells us this is the third time in two months the bar has been vandalized.

"Nine out of ten times it's probably somebody who's just irked about getting tossed out of the bar," he said.

Lou Maglio says his corner bar and grill serves a diverse crowd, so he can't pinpoint a motive for the racist nature of the vandalism.

He says, "Our crowd is a mixed crowd, so I mean we don't know who it could be. It could just be a local guy walking the street once in a while at night and just decides he wants to put something on someone's wall. It happens."

Roe Maglio tells us, "It's sad. It's just terrible, you know, that someone would just deface something like this."

The Maglios have filed complaints with police in the 1st district. If those responsible are arrested they'll face hate crime charges, defacing property, and possible jail time.

Lou explains, "Am I offended? No. We're repulsed by it - repulsed is probably the word for it. But this is today's day and age I guess."

Roe says, "I never thought I'd see this on one of my properties."

Despite the damage, the Station Bar & Grill remains open for business.

Philadelphia police are hoping someone knows who did this and will provide information to help them catch the perpetrators.