MORGANTOWN — The owner of Affordable Landscaping Supplies, Carl Sickles, said he doesn’t know why someone put a tow chain around his business’ roughly 2,000-pound sign and dragged it about two miles down the road.
The sign, a hand-sculpted concrete sign displaying a stylized A, is similar to work the company has done for clients, Sickles said. He estimated the value of the sign at $25,000-$30,000, but said it’s hard to put a value on it because it’s as much a work of art as anything else.
He said the sign had been up for about two weeks and wasn’t finished yet.
Sometime after midnight on Sunday, the sign, located on Point Marion Road, was ripped from its stand using a tow chain. It was dragged roughly two miles to Easton Mill Road, Sickles said. Guardrails were hit twice along the way, he said.
Sickles said a witness saw two men in a white or light colored truck with tool boxes on the side, when they were attempting to remove their tow chain on Easton Mill Road. The two were not able to remove the chain and left, Sickles said.
He said he doesn’t have any idea who would do this, but isn’t entirely sure it was a random act. The landscaping business can be competitive and Sickles said he tries not to directly compete with other landscapers, but that some people don’t like when his company does anything.
Despite its rough trip, the sign sustained only moderate damage, Sickles said. Repairs to the sign were about half done on Monday afternoon, he said.
“It’s pretty amazing it traveled two miles down the road, hit a guardrail twice and survived,” Sickles said. “Plus I got a free tow chain out of it.”
The crime was reported to the Monongalia County Sheriff’s Department. Sheriff Perry Palmer confirmed the department is investigating.
Anyone with information can call the sheriff’s department at 304-291-7260.
