An outspoken Staten Island artist says he’s being targeted by the city over his pro-cop views — and his less-than-flattering banner of Mayor Bill de Blasio holding up Lady Liberty’s severed head.
“The mayor knows me as not being his biggest supporter,” Scott LoBaido told The Post on Wednesday.
The NYC Department of Transportation last week sent LoBaido a cease and desist letter regarding a blue line he painted on a Hylan Boulevard median outside the 122nd NYPD precinct in New Dorp.
The thin blue line, which Lobaido painted as a show of support to law enforcement, is in violation of city rules prohibiting “defacement of any street by painting, printing, writing or attaching any advertisement..,” the letter states.
It gave the conservative firebrand until Wednesday to issue a response explaining the steps he’d taken to remove the paint.
But LoBaido said: “They don’t even deserve that…”
“This letter isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.”
LoBaido claimed he’s being discriminated against by the city for his right-leaning views and that he intends to fight the letter and sue.
And he suspects the mayor was roiled by the banner he briefly put up on the Staten Island Expressway last week, showing Hizzoner smirking in a Che Guevara shirt while holding Lady Liberty’s bloody head.
In a video to his 12,000 Instagram followers he questioned the difference between his artwork and de Blasio’s “Black Lives Matter” mural painted outside Trump Tower, asking: “did the mayor get this letter?”
“I don’t have an issue with Black Lives Matter artwork but I’m doing my artwork and it’s supporting the men and women in blue,” LoBaido told The Post.
To the mayor, he said: “When you take your artwork off the street, I’ll take my artwork off the street.”
The blue line in question was hit with graffiti in support of Black Lives Matter shortly after it was completed, and LoBaido said he’s since painted over the markings.
It’s not the first time his work has drummed up controversy; a 12-by-8-foot “T” with a patriotic flag motif he was commissioned to create for a fellow President Trump supporter got torched by vandals in 2016.
More recently, LoBaido created an artwork showing himself painting a blue line over the cease and desist letter, which he’s planning to auction for local non-profit NYC Cops and Kids Boxing Club.
The DOT didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
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NYC artist says he's being targeted over thin blue line painting on street - New York Post
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