If you have one of Oak Harbor Mayor Jim Slowik’s old campaign signs, be careful what you do with it because he may just stroll in your front door and take it back, even without your permission.

At least that’s what happened to SE Pioneer Way business owner Les Bense earlier this week. Shortly after opening up shop Monday morning, the mayor walked into his antique store, struggled for a minute or two to free the sign from the front window, then left with a speechless Bense in his wake.

“I didn’t know what to say; I was flabbergasted,” Bense said. “He walked out the door, got in his old pickup truck, and took off.”

Once the shock wore off, and at the urging of friends, Bense called the police believing he may have been the victim of a crime. But while Slowik does not deny that he took the sign, he said he didn’t do anything wrong.

“It’s my sign,” Slowik said. “I paid for it.”

It’s an opinion that’s shared by Oak Harbor police. According to Chief Rick Wallace, Slowik is the sign’s legal owner and he was well within his rights to take it back. If Bense sought to press charges, he would be turned away, he said.

“I agree that no crime has been committed,” Wallace said.

In fact, to Bense’s bewilderment, the shop owner was informed that he was the one who may have broken the law. Wallace said state law makes it clear that campaign signs must be taken down within 10 days of an election. Defacing campaign signs is also a misdemeanor crime, he said.

Bense said Slowik personally gave him the sign during his 2007 campaign for mayor. Bense took it down following the election but put it back up in his window about nine months ago. This time, however, the sign had Slowik’s name circled with black marker and a slash through it, along with the words “Vote him out.”

Bense says he put it up as a demonstration of his discontent over the SE Pioneer Way improvement project, the city’s $8.35 million renovation plan to convert the downtown street into a one-way. Like many merchants, Bense is adamantly against the plan, believing the design and pending construction will hurt business.

“It was a sign of protest,” he said.

The street is decorated with many such signs. The entire front window of one vacant storefront, commonly known as the “Wall of Shame,” is covered with messages by the opposition and copies of news stories about the road project and other city controversies.

According to Slowik, the storefront doesn’t bother him. This has been a controversial project and he has no intention of interfering with the public’s right to free speech, he said. As for the campaign sign, that’s a different story.

With road construction set to begin March 1, the city is on the verge of a “new era” and it was the appropriate time to reclaim his long lost property, Slowik said.

“I let him have it up for a year,” he said. “I just decided I’d loaned it to him long enough.”

Two days before Slowik took it back, Les Bense criticized the mayor and the road project in a story that appeared in the Saturday edition of the Whidbey News-Times. Slowik was championing an imminent contract with a construction firm as a historic event and Bense was quoted saying he thought a one-way street is the “dumbest thing in the world.”

According to Bense, Slowik offered very little explanation when he walked into his shop Monday morning, saying simply that he was “taking back” his sign.

“He did make some mumbling sounds as he went out the door but I’m hard of hearing so I don’t know what he said,” Bense said.

While Chief Wallace says Slowik is the sign’s legal owner, Bense said he spoke with an attorney who said otherwise. He claims Terry Smith, of the Law Offices of Terry Smith in Oak Harbor, advised him that it was unlikely that the mayor could claim ownership rights after so long.

“He said the sign was mine,” Bense said.

Island County Prosecutor Greg Banks declined to weigh in on the issue, saying only that even if a crime were committed, it would be a misdemeanor and not go through his office.

Despite his attorney’s counsel, Bense said he’s afraid to pursue the matter any further for fear that Slowik will retaliate with charges of his own, mainly defacement of a campaign sign. It’s the same reason he’s holding off on putting up another one of Slowik’s old campaign signs, which he acquired this week.

While putting it up in the exact same place where the old sign hung for so long would make a strong statement of his right to freedom of speech, he said it’s not something he’s willing to bet his freedom on.

“I’m an old man, I can’t get thrown in jail,” Bense said.