8 Students Arrested in Theft of Sign

Police arrested eight San Marino High School students late Saturday night as they apparently tried to steal a Chinese business sign that had been stolen five times in the last three months.

The sign is one of three in the city with Chinese characters, and some city officials and Chinese residents have become increasingly concerned that its theft has been racially motivated.

The students told police that they had nothing to do with previous thefts of the sign and only wanted to steal it as part of a club initiation.

One student, Ronald C. Steffey, apologized Monday to the owner of the real estate firm, saying he had no idea of the controversy surrounding the sign when he pried it off the building and would have never touched it if he had known.

“I know I’ve done wrong,” Steffey said in an interview at his home. “It was just such a stupid thing to do, but it had nothing to do with race.”

Owner Skeptical

But Caesar Wu, owner of Golden Acres Realty, said he remains unsure if the students are telling the truth and if their motives were as innocent as they say.

“Do you think they’re really going to admit anything?” Wu said. “I hope this is the end, but I really don’t know.”

Wu said he will wait for the police to complete their investigation before deciding what action he will take.

San Marino Police Cmdr. Paul Butler said the eight students were arrested about 11:30 p.m. after an officer noticed a car stopping behind the building at 2549 Huntington Drive.

One passenger left the car and used a ladder on the side of the building to climb up to the roof, Butler said.

Police arrested seven students in the car on charges of vandalism and theft. None of the seven were identified because they are juveniles.

Steffey, 18, was found on the roof near a plastic Chinese character that had been pried off the wall. He was also arrested on charges of vandalism and theft.

San Marino Police Chief Jack Yeske said the charges are misdemeanors. Steffey faces a fine of $500 or up to six months in County Jail. The juveniles will be turned over to Juvenile Court, which carries no specific penalties.

Steffey said it was a coincidence that they decided to steal Wu’s sign. He said they had been driving around the area on a scavenger hunt, part of an annual initiation rite for an informal social club made up of students from San Marino High School.

Don Banderas, the school’s principal, said the club is not officially sanctioned but is well-known to most students and draws members from all ethnic groups.

Steffey said there were about 50 students, split between six or seven cars, involved in the hunt. They were looking for a grab-bag of items, from a colored condom to an orange freeway cone.

“On the list was to get a sign . . . any sign,” Steffey said. “It was a coincidence we picked that one.”

The day after he was arrested, he found out about the history of Wu’s troubles. “Then it made me feel bad,” he said. “For the last few days I’ve been asking myself, ‘Why that sign?’ ”

The Golden Acres Realty sign has been a source of controversy in San Marino since it appeared last November even though it is not the first business to use foreign words in the city.

City Ordinance

Just down the street, the Shanghai Palace restaurant has had a sign with blazing red and yellow Chinese characters for 14 years, and the East-West Federal Bank also has a sign that uses Chinese characters in its company’s logo.

Neither sign has ever been vandalized or stolen.

Under a city ordinance requiring that 80% of a sign be in English, Wu was legally allowed to mount 10 Chinese characters on the building above the company’s English name.

But at the city’s prodding, he reduced the number to four and then finally just two one-foot-high, blue plastic characters to make the sign as unobtrusive as possible.

As soon as the sign went up, anonymous callers began complaining to Wu, police and City Hall that the two characters had no place in San Marino. The callers said the characters were opening the door for more Chinese signs to appear on Huntington Drive.

Within a few days, the sign was stolen.

Mayor Paul Crowley tried to calm the situation with a letter in the San Marino Tribune, explaining that Wu’s sign was legal and was no threat to the city.

But the letter and increased police patrols did not stop the vandals from striking again.

The police have just begun their investigation into Saturday’s theft and plan to interview the students again this week. Butler said the department will continue watching the sign.

Wu said he hoped the eight arrests will scare off others from vandalizing his sign and put an end to the controversy.

But he said he is far from relieved.

“Every time this happens I start to think maybe people are right, that there is some racism here,” he said. “I’ll always have some worry about that.”