Ban on Knife Sales to Minors OKd : Safety: L.A. City Council sends plan to mayor. It would target merchants who sell such weapons to the young.

Hoping to reduce injuries and deaths among youngsters, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to make it illegal to sell knives, blades or other stabbing weapons to anyone younger than 18.

If signed by Mayor Richard Riordan, as expected, the proposal would take effect in about a month. It targets merchants who sell such weapons to minors and would penalize them with a misdemeanor violation carrying a sentence of up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine per offense.

While presenting his motion to the council, San Fernando Valley Councilman Hal Bernson displayed three knives--including one with a five-inch blade and the words “Best Defense” etched on the leather sheath--that were purchased by a teen-ager at a Northridge liquor store and confiscated by a parent.

Bernson said he suggested the new law partly because of the increasing outbreaks of violence at local schools. “Kids shouldn’t be running around with deadly weapons in school or out,” he said before the council vote.

During the last five years the number of weapons confiscated in and near Los Angeles schools has gradually increased. In the 1988-89 school year, teachers and police confiscated 617 guns, knives and other weapons from youngsters in the Los Angeles Unified School District, according to district officials. That number increased in the 1992-93 school year to 714 weapons--including 362 knives, 153 guns and 199 other weapons, officials said.

Mark Slavkin, a Los Angeles school board member, said he supports the new law and applauds the City Council for tackling the problem rather than leaving it entirely up to school officials.

The new law was unanimously supported by the City Council but not before it was amended to exempt gifts from parents such as Boy Scout pocketknives and blades used by teen-agers to perform certain jobs.

For example, Councilman Richard Alarcon said that when he was a teen-ager he used a razor to open boxes when he worked as a box boy. He said he wanted to make sure that the new law would allow teen-agers to buy knives for work.

“I also think that many people in my district who are less than 18 have a million and one uses for these work-related instruments,” he said.

Current law prohibits anyone of any age from carrying knives with blades three inches or longer in plain sight, except when they use them for work or recreation. Municipal law also prohibits minors under 18 from carrying or keeping guns.

Bernson said he got the idea for the new law from a mother in his district who discovered that her teen-age son had three knives.

Less than two years ago, Marie Baida of Northridge said, she found the three knives--with blades ranging from five to 3 1/2 inches in length--in her 13-year-old son’s backpack. What was more shocking, she said, was learning where he bought them.

“I was flabbergasted when he told me he got them at the liquor store,” Baida said. “I told him ‘That’s impossible,’ because I didn’t believe he could buy them at a liquor store.”

But she went to the liquor store in Northridge and found that her son was telling the truth. The knives were on display in a glass case.

“I was just blown away that my kids could just buy these things,” she said. “No wonder kids are getting stabbed at school.”

Baida said she called Bernson’s office about the incident, hoping the lawmaker could draw some attention to the issue. She said she was happy that he had followed through with a new law.

“I’m thrilled that it went that far,” she said.