Palestinian cafe closes temporarily due to vandalism
The Falastin Market & Deli temporarily closed on Friday after employees found graffiti on the building and alerted police. According to Duluth Police, officers responded at the 4700 block of E Superior Street on Friday morning. Graffiti was located on the door frame that had a derogatory anti-Palestinian message.
Duluth Police say it appears the vandalism occurred sometime between 3 p.m. on Thursday, July 25 and 8:30 a.m. on Friday, July 26. The investigation continues.
A note posted on the door stated:
Hello Falastin Community, We’ve made the difficult decision to close down today for the safety of our staff, customers, and space due to concerning, militant, and threatening graffiti written on our building last night. Thank you for your love and support.
The Falastin Family
The business made the decision to close for the day.
In response to the incident, Duluth Mayor Roger Reinert released the following statement:
“Graffiti is unwelcome in the City of Duluth. It is a individual act that harms our collective community by damaging private and public property for personal ends. Further, graffiti that is intended to intimidate, threaten, or make any Duluth resident feel unsafe will not be tolerated. This administration has consistently advocated to expand the tools available to our public safety teams in order to help ensure we have a welcoming and inviting community for all, as well as promote the public experience in our neighborhoods, business districts, and our downtown.”
Daniel Fanning, the Vice President of the Duluth Chamber of Commerce, says that the Chamber is ready to help in any way possible. He believes that the actions of one vandal do not represent Duluthians.
“What I think represents this community very well, are the hundreds of people who have come out just in the last few hours, reached out to the business, posted on their Facebook page, reached out to us at the Chamber, saying, ‘What can we do together to help support this business?’ That’s really cool. That’s what we want to focus on,” said Fanning. “That’s really symbolic of what we’ve seen from this community and the business community as a large for years. So we’re not surprised by that. Very unfortunate incident, but we’re not going to let that represent what we know to be the spirit of this community.”
This is a developing story and will be updated as information comes in.