2 Candidates Charge Signs Were Stolen : Campaign: Council hopefuls say material was removed by supporters of Hal Bernson, whose office denies encouraging thefts.

Two candidates in the race for Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson’s seat complained Friday that Bernson supporters have stolen at least 1,500 signs promoting his rivals.

The Bernson campaign denied encouraging sign thefts, but dismissed any missing signs as illegally posted “political graffiti” that deserved to be removed.

Allen Robert Hecht and Walter Prince, who are among five candidates challenging Bernson for the 12th District council seat representing the northern San Fernando Valley, filed police reports and said witnesses had seen the thefts.

“The last time I was this upset was during Watergate,” said Hecht, who said 1,000 of his “Who the Heck is Hecht” signs were stolen. “When you steal that kind of stuff, it’s like you’re stealing the American flag.”

Prince said he lost 500 of his signs during an apparent sweep of the district by sign thieves late Thursday or early Friday morning. “There’s no question in my mind that it’s Bernson’s supporters doing this because they have the same kind of ethics he does,” Prince said.

Hecht and Prince filed separate police reports Friday alleging that they lost $6,000 and $4,000 worth of material, respectively. Detective Robert Pulley of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Devonshire Division confirmed that the reports had been filed and would be investigated.

“Why does this not surprise me?” Bernson political strategist Grieg Smith asked, reacting to the accusation.

“If signs have been taken, it has not been at the direction of this campaign,” he said. He countered with a charge that 90% of the signs of Bernson’s challengers were posted “indiscriminately and on property without the permission of the owners.”

Such signs are “damaging to the environment and constitute political graffiti,” Smith said. “I object to them and don’t disapprove of their removal, but it’s not our policy to have them taken down.”

Hecht and Prince said two witnesses--Northridge resident Mark Lit, a Democratic Party activist and instructor in economics at West Los Angeles College, and his wife, Estelle, a retired college professor--backed their contention that Bernson supporters took the signs.

The Lits told a reporter Friday that they saw several signs of anti-Bernson candidates being removed at about 11 p.m. Thursday from the Ralphs supermarket at the corner of Devonshire and Reseda boulevards by two men in a pickup truck.

“Signs were piled up high in the truck bed,” Mark Lit said. “There weren’t any signs for Bernson in there. They were signs for Korenstein, Prince and Hecht.”

Julie Korenstein, a Los Angeles school board member, is regarded as Bernson’s strongest challenger in the race, which culminates in the April 9 primary election.

Lit said he confronted the pair and they told him they were removing illegally posted signs. The two drove away when he asked them to identify themselves, Lit said. The Lits, however, wrote down the truck’s license plate information.

Jan Charles Gray, corporate attorney for Ralphs, said that because the market’s policy is to be neutral in political races, any signs on its property were unauthorized. The market manager was unaware that the signs had been posted and the market chain did not order the removal, he said.

Times staff writer Jack Cheevers contributed to this story.