St. Petersburg muralists, the Vitale Brothers, have offered to restore five murals for free that have been vandalized in the past few weeks, according to co-owner Johnny Vitale.

• Vitale Bros. off to restore murals in St. Pete for free
• 600-block building on Central Avenue recent target
• Detectives looking for at least 3 suspects, police say

“It’s our landscape, we have to look at it too,” he said. “We’re artists and this is something that we can do to support our city.”

The most recent business to be targeted is the 600-block building on Central Avenue in downtown St. Petersburg. A surveillance camera captured two men in the alley behind the building.

One of the men can be seen heaving grey paint across the top of the mural, while the other man spray paints the word “HATER” across the bottom.

The owner Gary Burnside said this is not the first time his building has been vandalized, and he’s eager to press charges.

“I’ve already caught one fella who was on probation. He came down here and defaced a mural,” he said. “I had him on camera and put him in jail. I’m going to do the same thing when we find out who this guy is.”

Last week, St. Petersburg police released surveillance video of a man and woman carrying paint cans as they walked near Planet Retro Records. That business along with three others, Stop and Shop, Story Brook Craft Coffee Bar and a warehouse on Emerson Avenue S., had grey paint thrown on their murals.

The Story Brook Craft Coffee Bar also had the word “HATER” spray painted on their mural.

St. Petersburg police spokeswoman Yolanda Fernandez said detectives are looking for at least three suspects.

“This video show two men throwing paint and spray painting on the wall versus a man and a woman we had in an earlier video,” she said. “Our concern is making sure that whoever’s doing this doesn’t do it to anymore of our city treasures.”

Vitale said he’s confident they can restore the original artwork.

“We’ll be able to match it very easily. If it was spray painted, we’re going to do it spray painted. If it was hand painted, we’ll do it hand painted,” he said. “With all due respect to the artists involved. We’ve been here long enough. We know their style. We’re not going to rob them of their flavor, we just want to make the mural go back to normal.”   

Vitale said at least three of the businesses have taken him up on his offer. Burnside said he’s interested.

“If he’ll fix my murals in the back, I’m all in,” he said. “I’ll help him financially. I know Johnny’s a good guy.”

Vitale said he has extra paint from the Shine Festival and he’s happy to help the community.

“It’s no problem for us to go fix these things,” he said. “We don’t want future businesses to be afraid to put a mural on their wall.”