Airport Guards Lose Right to Carry Weapons : Burbank Airport Guards Lose Police Powers

Burbank Airport security guards have been stripped of their powers to carry guns and make arrests after officials discovered a critical error in a 1982 state law intended to permit the airport to hire a private law enforcement force.

As a result, four off-duty Burbank police officers have been manning the two security checkpoints leading to the passenger gates since Friday.

This is an interim step that is significantly more costly than the airport’s own security force, said Victor J. Gill, community relations manager for the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority. The Burbank officers, who are working two-person shifts, are being paid $34.75 an hour by the Airport Authority, Gill said.

Gill would not disclose the private guards’ pay.

A long-term solution was uncertain because efforts to remedy the problem in the state Legislature failed last week, Gill said. The Federal Aviation Administration requires the airport to have law enforcement officers on duty between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., when commercial flights board, to enforce regulations against passengers boarding aircraft with weapons, among other duties.

Lockheed Air Terminal Inc., which has a contract to manage the airport, has employed 24 security guards since 1982. Members of the force, which Gill said received the same level of training as police officers, had carried firearms and were authorized to make misdemeanor and felony arrests. They have not been permitted to do either since Friday.

The private security guards have continued to direct traffic in front of the terminal, help keep runways clear and assist travelers.

Although state law prohibits private companies from appointing law enforcement officers, airport officials thought they had created an exception through passage of a 1982 bill that gave the Airport Authority the power to hire private law enforcement agents.

But Gill said it has now been discovered that the law did not cover Burbank Airport’s security force because the guards work for Lockheed and therefore are not directly employed by the Airport Authority, as specified in the legislation. The situation was brought to the authority’s attention last year by an attorney for a security guard who was appealing a disciplinary action.

“An incredible oversight occurred on everyone’s part,” said Richard Vicar, manager of airport affairs. “Nobody realized the problem. . . . No questions were asked.”

Said Gill, “The law was drawn in such a way as to technically be in error.”

Asked whether convictions resulting from arrests by the private security guards since 1982 might now be subject to legal challenge, Gill replied, “I’ll leave that to the lawyers.”

State Sen. Newton Russell, a Glendale Republican who sponsored the 1982 legislation, sought to amend the measure last week to permit Lockheed to hire the security guards and maintain the status quo. But the amendment was killed in the Senate Judiciary Committee by lawmakers who said that such government functions should not be transferred to private industry.

Before last week, when the authority was pursuing a possible legislative remedy, it did not believe it was necessary to restrict the powers of the private security force, Gill said. The Judiciary Committee action sparked the change in policy, he added.

The amendment’s demise leaves the Airport Authority with the choice of continuing to hire off-duty Burbank police officers, enlisting police from other departments or directly hiring its own security force, Gill said.

The nine-member authority, which is appointed by the Burbank, Pasadena and Glendale city councils, has contracted with Lockheed, the airport’s previous owner, to run the airport since 1978.