A CLUB owner has left messages to the vandals who scrawled graffiti tags on the front of his business.

Serge Gouraud found the white paint streaks daubed on the entrance of the Don’t Tell Mama club in Kemp Town, Brighton.

The private members’ club in St George’s Road had to close down before the lockdown was introduced in March.

But Serge arrived on Thursday to find the graffiti damage, and was hugely upset.

In a message to the taggers he wrote: “Working so hard to achieve a dream, then this happened. Why?”

His venue is one of many venues in Brighton facing an uncertain future, and he doesn’t expect to be able to reopen any time soon.

Serge said: “It is hard enough to close my club. Opening it was a dream of mine since being a teenager. I’ve been working really hard for four years and built up clientele.

“I walked in on Thursday morning, and the graffiti was all over the window. I was really upset. I’m all for artistic freedom and expression, but this is not artistic.

“It will have a financial impact for my business, but also has an impact on the street and on our city.

“It feels as though most people in Brighton now just live with it, nobody does anything. But it makes the city look uncared for.

“Why do we let it happen?”

Serge said that during the lockdown he has tried to keep positive and improve the business with redecorating inside.

But now he faces the clean up cost.

He said: “We closed a week before lockdown, obviously we were not making any money.

“Since then I’ve been spending most of my time redecorating the club and trying to keep positive.

“We have a small club, and for our customers it is like a family, but a club is for socialising and social distancing is hard to do.

“They have been very supportive throughout and have offered to help us.

“I want those who do it to realise what it does. In these days with the virus, we had to close down, and we will probably not be open again before Christmas.”

But first Serge wants the vandals to understand the consequences and cost of their tagging.

He said: “I have left the graffiti tagging in place as a little protest, with some messages. Even if they get stopped or arrested, nothing seems to be done.

“We get on with the neighbours and keep the entrance clean and tidy, but this has an impact on us, our neighbours, and the whole street. It is in the whole city, it seems to be everywhere.”