Market Guard Cuffs Bernson Foe : Granada Hills: A police detective campaigning for City Council is detained after disputing a store manager’s order to leave the premises.

Arthur (Larry) Kagele, who is running for City Councilman Hal Bernson’s 12th District seat, is a Los Angeles police detective with 22 years of experience on the force.

But Sunday afternoon, he was the one in handcuffs.

Kagele, 47, was handing out campaign literature at a Vons supermarket at San Fernando Mission and Balboa boulevards in Granada Hills when the manager told him to leave the premises. He refused and was detained by a private security guard, who handcuffed the detective and called the police.

Some potential voters who spoke with Kagele as they entered the store later saw him in handcuffs as they left.

“To see me in handcuffs like that, it hurts my campaign, it’s embarrassing to me,” an unfettered Kagele said after the incident. Even so, Kagele said, one voter told him, “Hey, I’ll vote for you anyway.”

Kagele, of Granada Hills, is one of five candidates challenging Bernson in the April 9 election.

The dispute began shortly before noon when the store manager, who refused to give her name, summoned Kagele inside to tell him that he needed her permission to pass out the campaign literature.

Kagele, who shops at the store, countered he didn’t need her permission. Kagele said colleagues in the Police Department’s labor relations division advised him that distributing campaign literature in public areas, such as malls and markets, was legal as long as he did not block the entrance.

Kagele said that when he offered this explanation to the store manager, she ordered him to leave. He refused, walked outside and resumed distributing his literature.

A half-hour later, a private security guard hired by the store chain also asked Kagele to leave. Kagele again refused and the guard, after consulting a supervisor by car radio, handcuffed him.

Kagele waited in handcuffs for more than 30 minutes until Los Angeles police officers arrived. Oddly enough, he said later, he had campaigned outside the store the day before without incident.

“I don’t feel I’m a violent-looking person, so why cuff me?” he said. “People say, ‘Here’s a policeman being handcuffed.’ What will they think?”

A man and his 10-year-old son, who were selling candy for Mayall Street Elementary School near the entrance where Kagele was detained, were not asked to leave by the store manager. But after witnessing Kagele in cuffs, they decided to call it a day.

“We’ve been here for two days. Same place, two days,” said the father, who did not want to be identified. “After the second cop car came, I figured we’d better pack up.”

The store manager eventually told police officers she would not press charges if Kagele left. Kagele said he complied and left because he did not have copies of laws which, he insisted, would prove he could distribute political literature at the supermarket.

The store manager referred questions to Vons corporate officials, who were unavailable for comment Sunday.

Officials with the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office familiar with statutes governing political activities in public places also were unavailable for comment.

“All the clerks know me and my wife,” Kagele said of the store. “Every month I spend about $1,000 in there. And I’ve been going there a long time, almost 15 years.”

Not any more, he said. “They lost my business,” he said, “and all my friends’ business.”