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Customers Call On Brooklyn Businesses To Replace Tattered American Flags

NEW YORK(CBSNewYork) -- Residents are calling tattered, dirty, and shredded American flags above several Brooklyn stores a slap in the face to Old Glory.

CBS 2's John Slattery spoke with customers who called on the business to fix the flags.

"They just need to be changed," Polly Patrick said.

Eight of the flags in question sit atop an Associated Supermarket on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn.

"They should be changed," George Rivera said.

Inside of the store, a customer who works construction had Old Glory under his hard hat.

The manager, who did not want to be identified, said that she was unaware of the battered banners on her roof. The owner of the independently owned store could not be reached.

Just blocks away on Parkside, seventeen flags adorn the roof of a Pioneer Supermarket. All of them are equally sad. The store manager promised action.

"We're gonna change it. I know the condition so we're gonna change it," Jensy Fernandez said.

Some 10 years ago, CBS 2's Lou Young took up the call to "fix that flag." CBS 2 was all over the region informing flag owners how to properly dispose of their flags.

Outside of the Associated, Patrick seemed concerned as she looked aloft.

"We don't want that flag. We need a better flag," Patrick said.

In flying the national symbol all tattered and torn, one observer said we should not be sending the message that we just don't care, Slattery reported.

According to the U.S. code for care and display of flags, heavily worn and weathered flags should be destroyed in a dignified manner, preferably by burning.

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