All over town, BP gas station signs are being vandalized with brown paint – even atop 30-foot poles.

“It appears they put it inside water balloons and throw them at the sign,” a police source said.

A paint remover who was cleaning blotches of brown paint off a sign on E. 125th St. said he had been to five other BP stations since late May.

“People are getting mad at BP,” the worker said. “They are throwing paintballs. All of them are brown. The same paint. Maybe it is the same person.”

Cops say they don’t know if it’s the work of a lone vandal.

“There are a lot of people upset out there,” the police source said. “We don’t know who is doing it. But we know why they are doing it.”

The first attack was on Houston St. in Manhattan about May 30. Stations hit in Brooklyn include one on Union Ave. and another on Kent Ave.

“What are they trying to prove? They’re just stupid!” said Mark Sapozhnikov, 60, manager of the BP station on Kent Ave., who said it took him $1,500 and three days to clean his sign.

“People need to realize that by vandalizing private businesses, they’re not helping the oil spill,” he said.

BP gas stations are usually owned by small businessmen who bought a franchise and a contract, not by the international oil giant.

The National Association of Convenience Stores has been trying to convince the public not to take its frustrations over the BP Gulf of Mexico disaster out on individual station owners.

“I use BP because it’s the best oil, and their service delivery is great. I’ve had that contract for 20 years, and I’m not going to end it because of the vandalism or the spill,” Sapozhnikov said.

On Facebook, hundreds of anti-BP groups have popped up with names like “No BP for Me,” “Take Over BP” and “I vote we plug the gulf oil leak with BP executives.”

There are 541 groups called “Boycott BP” alone.

Part of the general anger at the oil company is being directed at the White House – one reason President Obama announced yet another trip to the gulf early next week.

(Source: NY Daily News / YWN-112)