The Lucky Stake Out Their Claims : Lottery Winners Converge on Sylmar

If the San Fernando Valley has a winner’s circle, then the California lottery office in Sylmar is it.

There, in a building unadorned except for green-and-yellow posters with the letter L, more than 400 people hand-deliver winning tickets to lottery officials each day for verification, said Paul Nochenson, who runs the Sylmar office, one of six lottery offices in Southern California.

Fifty-seven people brought in $5,000 winning tickets on Monday, the fifth day of the lottery, said Nochenson, a district sales manager for the lottery.

Precious Cardboard Bits

Clutching their precious bits of colored cardboard, carting children and giggling with friends, the winners came from Lancaster and Burbank, Thousand Oaks and West Los Angeles. People who win $2 or $5 lottery prizes can redeem their tickets from the retailer who sold them.

In the bustling lobby of the one-story building in an industrial park, winners rubbed elbows with retailers who had come to pick up additional ticket orders after running out early. The Sylmar office serves 2,400 businesses in the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys, Hollywood, Eagle Rock and Silver Lake and moves about 1 million tickets a day with regular deliveries, Nochenson said.

Those who run out of tickets can phone in orders and pick them up on short notice, he said.

Chong Kim, who owns a 7-Eleven store in Los Angeles, took advantage of the policy to pick up an additional 36,000 tickets.

Several retailers at the office to pick up additional orders Tuesday said they had more foot traffic because of lottery sales, in addition to the nickel margin they receive from the sale of every $1 ticket.

“For the first three days, all my business was tickets,” said Park Chong of Los Angeles, who bought an additional 10,000 tickets for each of his three grocery stores. “Now, volume is picking up and I have too many customers. I’m thinking of hiring some new employees,” he said.

Nochenson, whose staff has been working 12 to 16 hours a day, said businesses that don’t sell a minimum number of tickets each week may eventually be dropped from the lottery program. He said that, if a business does not sell more than 500 tickets a week, it could be dropped.

Although no money is given out--winners must wait for checks to be sent from Sacramento--security at the office is tight because of the number of tickets changing hands. It includes two uniformed guards and an elaborate security system to safeguard the 2.5 million tickets stored in an adjoining warehouse, Nochenson said.

“I’m the only one with keys,” he said.

But the winners who lined up to fill out claim forms Tuesday did not seem to be bothered by either the tight security or the wait for the prizes.

Tomiye Wakamoto and Momoko Takata, two housewives and neighbors in Granada Hills, gleefully displayed their winning tickets.

Wakamoto said she bought 17 tickets, one of which turned out to be a $5,000 winner. Excited by her good fortune, she immediately ran next door to give her neighbor the remaining seven tickets.

Takata rubbed off a $500 winner.

“I think seven is a lucky number,” said Wakamoto, who claims she has won “small things, but never anything big” before. Neither woman knows exactly what she will do with the money, although Takata said she will spend it on her family and her church.

Both have time to decide, however, because lottery winners can expect to wait seven to 14 days to receive their checks, according to signs posted on the office walls.

Bought With Spare Change

As winners lined up to fill out claim forms, Jack Sax, 24, a $500 winner, explained that he had bought his winning ticket with spare change that remained after he had bought doughnuts in Inglewood.

Sax said he is hooked on the California lottery because he loves Las Vegas and the lottery is “sort of like keno.”

Also in line was Frank Weimer of Burbank, who waited to turn in $100 and $500 tickets he had purchased simultaneously.

Why did Weimer make a special trip to Sylmar when he could have just as easily sent the tickets through the mail?

“Wouldn’t you?” he asked incredulously, as several others in line nodded in agreement. “I wanted to make sure it got here.”