IN EXCESS

The new symbol of life in Los Angeles in the recession-racked ‘9Os isn’t a Mercedes, or a car phone, or even a palm tree. It’s B.T.O.

B.T.O. is security industry shorthand for barbed tape obstacles, or razor wire. Everywhere you look these days, people are stringing coils of shiny, wickedly sharp stainless steel razor wire around their property. Factories, warehouses, apartment buildings and private homes are festooned with this Christmas tinsel from hell. Caltrans is even wrapping it around certain freeway signs to keep graffiti artists at bay. Needless to say, in the B.T.O. industry, business is soaring.

“There’s been a real boom,” says Steven Garner of American Security Fence Corp. of Phoenix, which markets razor wire under a variety of trade names, including the festive-sounding “Razor Ribbon.” “In California, it’s been tremendous. I would say in the past four years or so we’ve seen a 40% to 50% increase.”

Garner attributes the B.T.O. boom to the recession, high unemployment and widespread drug-related crime, all of which tend to make some people want to get into places that other people want to keep them out of. Razor wire, says Garner, is an excellent passive psychological deterrent; the merest brush can result in a nasty cut. Developed during the Vietnam War, it is available through several companies for anywhere from $1 to $10 a foot. Garner personally has mixed feelings about the boom.

“It is a temporary solution to some of the problems in our society,” Garner says. “Unfortunately, unless there are significant changes in our society, it (the B.T.O. boom) probably will continue.”