WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (WFMY) — Winston-Salem city leaders have told the owner of a recently vandalized Confederate monument to remove it by Jan. 31 or face a possible lawsuit.

The Winston-Salem Journal reports the city’s mayor, Allen Joines, announced at Tuesday’s Emancipation Proclamation ceremony that the United Daughters of the Confederacy could face legal action if the group doesn’t comply.

State law makes it difficult to remove monuments on public property, but the Confederate Soldiers Monument is on private property.

Considering that and the confrontations over Confederate monuments elsewhere, the city attorney believes it creates a public nuisance.

WFMY News 2 reported last month that the statue had been vandalized for a second time in 2018. In the latest act of vandalism police said someone wrote “cowards & traitors” on the statue’s base. The other incident happened in 2017 after the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.