Not Much Cheer at Lincoln’s $80,000 Cookie Party

Two full, steaming pots of cider sat on portable burners, and plates of cookies near the teller windows appeared to be untouched.

Sofas and chairs were arranged around coffee tables and amid desks where lenders once sat, giving a homey, close-knit feeling in an office entirely too big for the traffic coming through the door.

To celebrate the Christmas season, the insolvent Lincoln Savings & Loan is spending an estimated $80,000 to advertise its offering of free cookies and cider to customers at all 29 branches. But holiday cheer wasn’t infectious at this Huntington Beach branch. For half an hour during lunchtime Tuesday, no one came to sample the cider, much less put any money in their accounts.

“We get some customers in the morning and again from 2 to 4 in the afternoon,” said one of the three branch employees. “But most of our money comes in through large CDs . . . and we can’t make any loans.”

Irvine-based Lincoln was seized by the government in April, and regulators will not allow the S&L; to make loans.

Lincoln’s holiday treat for customers isn’t unusual for S&Ls.; Many thrifts provide free goodies to customers during holiday seasons.

But unlike Lincoln, they are not destined to become the biggest industry disaster. Taxpayers could be hit with a $2-billion bill to clean up the S&L;, which regulators seized in April.

More importantly, critics say, Lincoln has lost more than $875 million in the first nine months this year and shouldn’t be paying the estimated $80,000 in newspaper advertisements to invite their customers in for cookies and cider.

Regulatory officials in Washington thought that advertising the S&L;’s season’s greetings was appropriate, though a bit extravagant.

“I think Lincoln’s marketing department got a little carried away with the size of the ads,” said Caryl Austrian, a spokeswoman for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

The S&L;’s good cheer wasn’t wasted, though, said Mark Randall, a regulatory executive managing Lincoln. Other offices in the Lincoln network generally see a “considerable number of customers,” he said.

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