Two men were arrested Monday on felony...

ENCINO — Two men were arrested Monday on felony charges of cutting down a 50-year-old, city-owned tree.

Benito Martinez of Canoga Park and Martin Juarez of Reseda, both 31, were taken into custody on suspicion of felony vandalism for allegedly downing the 60-foot liquidambar tree in the 5900 block of Hesperia Avenue, police said.

They were being held at the West Valley police station jail on $15,000 bail each Monday night.

Police say the owner of a nearby home may be charged with the same crime, based on reports by neighbors that he hired the pair to cut down the tree because it shed leaves into his yard.

It is illegal to cut city-owned trees without a permit, Los Angeles Police Sgt. Craig Crosby said, and the city will probably demand restitution for the tree. The Department of Public Works estimates its worth at $30,000. The men may also have to reimburse the city for removing the tree from the street, uprooting the stump and planting another tree--an additional $5,000, according to the DPW.

Crosby said the accused tree-cutters also did not have business or driver’s licenses, so their equipment and their truck were impounded.

“It was a pretty stupid thing to do,” said arresting Officer Terry Webb, lamenting the loss of the decades-old tree. “The guy that lives there should know better than this.”

Glen Bailey, who lives down the street, equated the tree-cutting to the harvesting of the rain forests or the depletion of the redwoods. “This is a serious situation,” he said.

DPW spokesman Chuck Ellis said city trees are not exactly under attack by homeowners, but occasionally people “who don’t know any better” cut down city-owned trees. “Usually it’s just a lack of information, rather than anything malicious, that causes people to cut down these trees.”

If Martinez and Juarez are found guilty of felony vandalism, said district attorney’s office spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons, the penalty is 16 months to three years in prison.