Private Security Keeps the Guard Up on Boulevard : Safety: For the past four months, the unarmed patrols have tried to make the famed street better for tourists, residents and business people. So far, the reviews are mixed.

With four months of service under their dark-gray Smokey the Bear hats, the security guards who walk Hollywood Boulevard have found themselves face to face with shoplifters, graffiti taggers and flimflam men. That’s on a good day. On a bad day they come back to headquarters bloody.

“This is the closest (that) private security will ever come to law enforcement,” said Danny L. Robertson, director of operations for Patriot Security, which supplies the city of Los Angeles with with private protection for 16 hours a day.

The unarmed guards, which are funded by tax money set aside for Hollywood under state redevelopment law, are intended to help keep the streets safe for tourists, residents and business people.

Trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation, first aid and self-defense, the guards are not part of the police force, but they help take some of the burden from the understaffed LAPD, said Capt. John Higgins, commander of the department’s Hollywood area.

“Anybody out there, any additional force in some kind of official uniform . . . would have some kind of positive effect,” he said. “The more effective they are at doing their job, the more it makes our work easier.”

On the street since June 11, the guards respond to about 250 calls a week.

Equipped with whistles, radios, nightsticks and handcuffs, they start their work early, with a wake-up call for transients asleep on sidewalks, bus benches and building entrances from La Brea Avenue to Gower Street.

“We don’t allow them to lean into the wall. We tell them they’ve got to keep moving,” Robertson said.

By 11 a.m. they shift to a public relations mode, keeping an eye out for the tourists who pick their way through grimy sidewalks to Mann’s Chinese Theater, often at a loss for where to go next.

“ ‘How do I get to Universal City?’ That’s the No. 1 question we get out there,” Robertson said. Another occasional request is to move aside so visitors can take a picture of the stars on the Walk of Fame.

By late afternoon, a rougher element enters the scene, gang members and drug-dealers among them.

Then the focus returns to law enforcement, especially on weekend nights, when the Los Angeles Police Department comes out in force to discourage late-night cruising. With the police taking care of business on the boulevard, the guards move to the alleys and side streets.

They have dealt with thefts, assaults and indecent exposure, among other problems. Homeless people, runaways, mental cases and substance abusers are given referrals to social service agencies.

While no one has shot at them, they have witnessed shootings and broken up fights. The company is covered by a $2-million liability policy.

“The baton doesn’t come out unless it’s life-threatening,” Robertson said. “It’s not unusual for guys to come in at the end of their shift with blood on them.”

The guards say they helped eliminate a nest of troublemakers who used to gather at a bus stop outside the McDonald’s restaurant near Highland Avenue. The LAPD arrested the drug dealers, and guards told hangers-on to take a bus or leave the corner.

“We’re not making busts out there,” said Patriot account executive John R. Wells. “You can resolve conflict without arresting people, and we have the time to do that. I can have four officers at McDonald’s for two hours, and I can make people understand that I can do this at any time.”

Working for a company top-heavy with retired military personnel, the 30 guards assigned to Hollywood Boulevard are held to a spit-and-polish regimen of ironed shirts, shined shoes and neat haircuts.

“The professional look is a deterrent,” said Wells, a 20-year Army man. “When they see me come down the street they check their shoe-shines.”

Inspection is held every day at 4 p.m. Arrayed in ranks from officers through corporal, sergeant, senior sergeant, lieutenant and captain, they were told recently to do without sunglasses while on the job.

“Eye contact is the key. Either, ‘Hi, how are you?’ or ‘Excuse me, what are you doing?’ ” said Angel Garcia, the company’s top-ranking uniformed officer. He bears the rank of commander and wears a pair of silver stars on his collar.

Memos on the bulletin board at their storefront headquarters in the Jane’s House shopping plaza take note of complaints that some of the guards have been spotted smoking on duty, flirting, window-shopping and spending too much time in stores.

All these behaviors have been banned, and Richardson said the staff has stabilized after a high rate of turnover during their early weeks on the boulevard.

“We’ve been trying to find out what they’re supposed to be doing,” said Robert Nudelman, head of a Hollywood citizen’s group that says it first came up with the idea for a private street patrol.

“Some of them seem to be aggressively monitoring the situation and others are just walking through it,” he said.

“The reviews are kind of mixed,” said Leron Gubler, executive director of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. “Some people are very pleased with them, and then there are others who don’t think they’re as visible as they should be.”

In any case, he said, “The fact they’re out there is a reassurance factor to the people coming to the boulevard.”

Anywhere from 15 to 18 guards are on duty at a time. Two of them per shift ride mountain bikes that can take them from one end of the patrol zone to the other in 90 seconds.

“A few times we’ve come close to chasing people down in stolen cars,” said black-helmeted bike patrolman Rod Johns. “I used to be in business on Hollywood Boulevard and I live in Hollywood. This is something that needs to be done, and I just love to see this being done.”

Many merchants welcome their presence.

“They really have cleaned up the boulevard,” said Jack Arian, owner of the Supply Sergeant military surplus store.

But the merchants are less enthusiastic about eventually picking up some of the $750,000 yearly cost of the program, as suggested by city officials.

“The merchants should all participate in some kind of system like this, but half of them are starving to death, half of them can’t pay their rent,” Arian said.

“We really need them,” said Adelle Klate of Gulliver’s Travel. But if it comes to paying for the service, “I don’t think we have the money,” she said.

The contract runs out next summer.

“If the community wants it extended then I’ll have to look at our resources, and I firmly believe the community has to start supporting it as well,” said Len Betz, Hollywood project director for the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency.

“If we clean up the boulevard and make it secure, that will do a lot toward revitalization of the boulevard,” he said.