Residents walking down Valencia Street between 20th and Liberty streets stopped in their tracks this morning, to see Smitten Ice Cream’s storefront smashed to pieces, and the one remaining front window covered in graffiti: “FREE PALESTIEN,” it read, with the second word misspelled.
The other windows and two doors were covered in plastic, and shards of glass were visible on the pavement, as well as inside the shop.
Smitten Ice Cream has been a local favorite for years. The store’s founder, Robyn Sue Fisher, who is Jewish, began selling homemade ice cream from a cart around San Francisco and later opened stores in San Francisco and San Jose. The location on Valencia Street opened in 2017.
A spokesperson from the police department wrote that at 2:49 a.m., officers from Mission Station responded to an alarm activation at the store, and arrived to find shattered front windows.
“When they met with the victim, they were able to determine that the business had been vandalized for unknown reasons,” the police said in a statement. No arrests have been made at this time.
It is not clear whether anything was stolen during the incident, nor is it clear whether the vandalism and defacement will be investigated as a hate crime.
Fisher could not be immediately contacted for comment. A manager at the store declined to speak about the incident.