Businesses in midtown Sacramento are dealing with a new form of graffiti that's said to be showing up in major cities across the country.

It is called chemical etching, a process that leaves deep, milky, permanent scars on glass.

Business owners said it is done at night by tagging crews using sulfuric acid etching cream ordered from overseas.

Some businesses have been hit several times in the past year.

The graffiti cannot be buffed out. Instead, each pane of glass has to be replaced, at a cost of hundreds or thousands of dollars.