It took artist Judy Pohl about three hours to eradicate anti-Semitic slurs and a swastika from the mural she painted on the Langley Baseball clubhouse and concession.

On Wednesday, Pohl had finished covering up graffiti declaring “Hitler rules” and anti-Jewish comments, some of them obscene, that was spray-painted on the exterior sometime between Saturday night, March 25 and Sunday morning, March 26.

Pohl explained the repair work took a little longer that it could have, because some outraged City parks staff had spray-painted over the messages shortly after they were discovered on the weekend, apparently unaware the mural has two layers of an anti-vandalism coating,

When she first saw the graffiti, Pohl said her reaction was “why?

“It was horrible,” she told the Langley Advance Times.

When asked what she would say to the people responsible, if she had a chance, Pohl asked, “do we have to have words?” then mimed throwing punches.

In 2021, the colourful murals were painted on the clubhouse in City Park by Pohl as a gift from the Downtown Langley Business Association to the city and the Langley Baseball Association.

READ ALSO: VIDEO: Anti-Semitic graffiti spray-painted on donated mural at Langley Baseball clubhouse

Dan McLaren, senior vice president of the Little League club, called it a “hate crime” and reported the incident to Langley RCMP.

On Wednesday, a statement decrying the vandalism was issued by Nicolas Slobinsky Senior Director, Pacific Region, of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), an agency of the Jewish Federations of Canada.

“We are appalled that a Langley baseball clubhouse was spray painted with antisemitic hate,” the statement read.

“There is no room for hate in sports or anywhere.”

Slobinsky described the incident as “heartbreaking but not surprising.”

READ ALSO: Baseball-themed murals add colour to Langley’s City Park

It happened as the club was preparing to resume play, at a time when membership in the Little League ball club, which encompasses all of Langley City and all of Langley Township, has grown from 614 kids last year to 760 this year, with an increase in the number of teams from 53 to 62.

The incident at the Little League club comes after someone vandalized the gate to a Langley townhouse that has been flying the Ukraine flag since the Russian invasion earlier this month by spray-painting anti-Ukraine graffiti.