Parking-Lot Attendants Come Up With $5,000 Ticket

Four Encino parking attendants who decided to have some fun by pooling their change to buy six lottery tickets became $5,000 richer Friday when one of the tickets turned out to be a top-prize winner.

“I had a feeling we were going to win,” said Ernie Lacanbre, an attendant at a parking garage under the Encino Financial Center on Ventura Boulevard.

Lacanbre, who scratched the boxes revealing the winning ticket, will split the prize money with fellow attendants Peter Juan and Mike Saillant and garage manager William Chan.

The four men spent most of the afternoon gleefully spreading the news to every driver who pulled into the garage. Within minutes, long lines stretched down the street next to the garage as office workers in the area waited to buy tickets at the Mail Boxes Etc. USA outlet where the men bought their lottery tickets.

‘It Was Wild Here’

Cheryl Williams, co-owner of the store, estimated that the outlet sold more than 3,000 tickets in the hour after the discovery of the $5,000 ticket.

Saillant said he did not believe Lacanbre had uncovered a winner at first.

“Yesterday we were playing and Ernie scratched out a ticket and started yelling about how he had won $5,000, and he was only joking,” Saillant said. “So today, he starts doing the same thing and I say, ‘Yeah, sure.’ And he says, ‘No, really, I won $5,000,’ and I wasn’t going to look at his ticket until I saw he couldn’t say nothing and he was shaking.”

Not Eligible for Jackpot

Lacanbre, who said he hoped that the group would win $2 million in the grand prize drawing, appeared only slightly disappointed when he learned that only $100 winners are eligible for the jackpot.

“I think it is a very good idea to give a chance to people like us, people who are not professionals, to win a lot of money,” he said.