Warren residents outraged at the recent appearance of dozens of racist and hateful stickers in downtown Warren are responding fiercely, and with a very different message: Hate Has No Home Here.

Where stickers touting Nazism and the Ku Klux Klan were recently placed by an unknown hand, "Hate Has No Home Here" stickers began showing up Tuesday. Bright blue, they were visible throughout the Water Street area.

"It's a good message," said Taylor Faria, who had them printed and hung them throughout the day. "We're just gonna keep stamping over them."

Ms. Faria first learned about the stickers Monday night, after Warren artist William Schaff posted online about his discovery of and continuing attempts to remove them whenever he sees them.

"I have covered them (and) scraped them off, but they have returned relatively quickly," he wrote. "What I first thought was some chuckle head passing through town now looks like someone who actually lives in our town (or at least is in it on a regular basis)."

By Tuesday, the stickers' appearance had led to widespread outrage, and spurred action. An anonymous donor offered $200 for information leading to the identification of the person or persons who hung them. Warren police were informed of and began investigating the stickers' appearance. And Warren Town Manager Kate Michaud released a statement to the press denouncing them and asking that "everyone who is sickened by this, as I am, to speak loudly against this type of racist propaganda to send the message that this is not what Warren is about."

Ms. Faria went out Monday night to look for and remove stickers on her own, and the next day contacted Barrington residents who had had the "Hate Has No Home Here" stickers made up in their town. They sent Ms. Faria the image, and she had several hundred printed.

Online, debate over the stickers' significance polarized commenters on East Bay Newspapers' Facebook page. Many condemned them as a disgrace and an undeserved black mark on Warren, though there was debate with some who posited that they might not be the work of white supremacists at all, but kids or others looking for attention or kicks.

"You're making an assumption that these people are actually white supremacists," former Republican Town Committee Chairman and 2020 Senate District 10 candidate Mark Smiley wrote in response to one comment.

"I bet they are some kids just trying to stir up trouble to see how much drama they can make. You getting all outraged that there are white supremacist's in our midst is playing into their hands."

"I love how people who don’t want anyone talking about this are acting like KKK stickers are just random harmless things kids get their hands on by accident. It’s not like they sell them at the dollar store," Jennifier Charleson, an artist in Warren, replied later in the thread.