Sign damage at downtown business

Z’s All Things Good is still open, just minus a sign. Or, at least minus the official sign, which is now leaning against a tree in the front yard.

Susanna Mantis, Z’s owner, said she got a call from the neighbor Sunday morning, saying her sign was laying on a bush in their yard, dented and bent.

The plants in the small garden surrounding the sign’s frame were disturbed, the ground lights were broken and a railroad tie was knocked out of place.

Deputy Brian Odengorg, with the Stanwood Police Department, said there’s no conclusive evidence to support any one theory, but it looks like the sign was either backed into by a vehicle or kicked out of its frame.

Mantis said she thinks it was backed into.

“At first I was mad,” she said, “and all I could think about was vandals. But now I’m re-contextualizing the whole thing – it’s all in how you see it.”

She said she hopes it was an accident, that maybe someone backed into her sign in the dark. She’s not sure why they would have been in her parking lot last Saturday night, but she hopes that whatever they were doing, they were having fun.

“I think if someone had left me a note, or a voicemail, just saying, ‘hey, I can’t tell you who I am, but I wanted you to know I hit your sign,’ that would have helped,” Mantis said. “But, what am I gonna do?”

“My attitude is much better now, I’m at peace,” she said.

Odenborg said the sign is valued at $2,600.

“That’s a lot of money for a business to be out,” he said.

Mantis agreed that in this economy, she doesn’t have the money to replace the sign. But the main thing, she said, is that she’s still open.

“Someone saw the sign was gone and asked if I’m going out of business,” Mantis said. “No! I’m going for it.”

Staff Reporter Jeremiah O’Hagan: 629-8066 ext. 125 or ohagan@scnews. com.