TULARE -- The mural at Tulare's Blackstone Market depicts six faces with different ethnic backgrounds, all beneath an American flag. The mural, dedicated to the people of Tulare, was one of the city's first.

And it's gradually being destroyed by vandals.

"[It's] art terrorism," said a furious Don Le Baron, member of the Tulare Cultural Art Foundation. "When somebody defaces a piece of public art, it's terrorism."

The business at Blackstone Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue has been vandalized several times, business owners say. Each time, the operators paint over the south-wall graffiti -- eliminating more of the mural.

But the destruction is no longer being ignored.

After learning about the vandalism, Tulare Improvement Program coordinator Jerry Magoon said it's time

for a restoration project. The mural, created by artist Antonio Reyna, will be touched up and cleaned up, Magoon said.

It can't happen too soon, said Claude Meitzenheimer, Tulare's graffiti-removal czar.

"It needs immediate attention. It's just a mess," said Meitzenheimer, a community volunteer. "We'll make every effort to clean it up."

The mural is between 20 and 30 years old, Meitzenheimer said.

Le Baron, whose organization promotes several murals in downtown Tulare, says the vandalism strikes at the heart of the mural's message of tolerance and peace. He calls the vandals "idiots" who don't appreciate the artwork's cultural significance.

"It's a sad commentary on how out of tune the people who commit this are," he said. "It shows how ignorant these guys are. It's total ignorance. Some of these guys don't have a clue of what's going on."

Meitzenheimer said he has battled graffiti in and around the mural for years. At times, the site has looked like a "war zone," he said.

Meitzenheimer is no fan of the business' cleanup efforts, which left the mural pockmarked with different-colored squares of paint. But store clerk Abe Kahassay said that in the past, it often took too long for city officials to deal with the graffiti and the business had to step in.