STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The words are aggressive yet polite, more a statement than a request: "Please don't sell heroin on this stoop."

They're painted on the red door of Cobra Sun Studios in Tompkinsville, the letters of "heroin" dripping with what could be blood.

Artist Alexis Scott painted the striking words as a way of reclaiming a stoop that's become ground zero in Staten Island's heroin epidemic, she said.

She and Gary Nieves Jr., the owner of the studio watch the deals happen in broad daylight and had to do something.

They said the message has helped a little bit -- perhaps the usual sales moved somewhere else.

But they were shocked at how hostile the response was. The day after the painting went up, someone left a pile of needles at the doorstep, said Nieves, also a member of the band Rising Sun Allstars.

The building's landlord Jeff Gjeshbitraj said lately it's been especially bad outside the property on 194 Bay Street, which overlooks Tompkinsville Park.

"It's getting worse and worse," he said.

At the start of this month, there were 71 overdose deaths on the Island this year which prosecutors believe are heroin- or opioid-related and are being investigated as such, according to District Attorney Michael E. McMahon.

He was shocked to see how spitefully the community responded to Scott's painting, but his response is not to back down: Next week, he'll commission another piece by Scott -- a large mural on the iron gate that covers the studio's first floor. She's not sure about the details, but knows it'll probably be related to the drug crisis.

Gjeshbitraj said he loves the neighborhood, and doesn't think the people outside the studio are even from Tompkinsville. Either way, he thinks the community deserves better, he said.

"If Staten Island is the heroin capital of New York City, this street is the heroin capital of Staten Island."