Local News in Brief : Wider Check Enforcement

A Los Angeles County program that helps merchants get payment for bounced checks and sends first-time offenders to check-writing school was expanded to 11 more cities on Thursday.

Saying that the Bad Check Enforcement Program has proven its worth in nearly two years of experimental operation in the San Gabriel Valley, Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner announced that it would be expanded to Bell Gardens, Downey, Paramount, Bellflower, Cerritos, Lakewood, Artesia, Hawaiian Gardens and Signal Hill in southeastern Los Angeles County, along with Glendale and Burbank.

Reiner said the program so far has obtained payments of $429,864.06 for checks that were returned to merchants for insufficient funds. The program also has paid its own expenses since February through a $25 charge for each bad check, he said.

After merchants produce evidence of bounced checks, the prosecutor’s office sends out a computer-generated letter informing the check writer that there is a “strong prima facie case that a crime has been committed.”

The letter offers an alternative to prosecution--a four-hour weekend course in personal bookkeeping and ethics at the student’s expense. So far, the writers of about a third of the 12,280 checks turned in by merchants have paid their debts and gone to class, authorities said.