Though Bandit is robbed of his career, he has stolen officer’s heart.

POLICE POOCH: Bandit and his canine handler Officer Joe Hall have shared a special partnership at the Palos Verdes Estates Police Department.

The German shepherd has helped in the arrest of nearly 500 suspects and performed 1,203 searches for narcotics and people. He’s saved the life of his human partner so many times that Hall says he has lost count.

But 9-year-old Bandit, who has been showered with accolades, seems to have come to the end of his career. An operation for back pain in April has left his hind legs paralyzed. The vet says the dog has a 20% chance of recovering.

“It’s pretty much a tragic end to a really brilliant career for Bandit,” Hall said. “This is not the way I wanted him to retire.”

But, he said, he’s not giving up on his friend. Bandit gets around in a specially crafted device and undergoes therapy--including acupuncture--twice a week. Hall massages the dog’s legs and helps him in and out of his rolling walker.

Police Chief Gary Johansen said the Palos Verdes Police K-9 unit will get another cop dog within the next two to three months. But Hall still takes Bandit on ride-a-longs occasionally. “He can’t function without his back legs, but it’s good therapy for him to be in the car,” Hall said. “He still thinks he can do the job.”

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FUTURE POLS: Former Vice President Dan Quayle declines to say whether he’ll run for President in 1996, but Redondo Beach Councilman Stevan Colin is no Dan Quayle.

The District 3 councilman announced recently his plans to run for mayor of Redondo--in 1997. That is when incumbent Brad Parton’s term expires.

Colin, whose second term on the council expires in 1995, dropped the bombshell during a city meeting while officials were discussing whether to make the city attorney’s post an elected position. Colin, an attorney himself, wanted everyone to know he had no interest in running for the position.

Although the word is out on his bid for the mayor’s seat, Colin said the campaign signs won’t be popping up anytime soon. Maybe in ‘96, he said.

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SOCCER SPHERE: The Unocal refinery in Wilmington has its hands on an all-purpose promotion for big events.

The oil giant’s 76-foot-tall sphere, a tank used to capture refinery gases, was recently painted to look like a soccer ball, in honor of the upcoming World Cup and the American Youth Soccer Organization World Games.

In recent years, the company has made the tank a pumpkin for Halloween, a baseball for the World Series and the Earth for Earth Day, 1990.

The sphere--which the company calls the world’s largest soccer ball--is painted orange and features the company’s “76” logo and a four-foot-high “Play Soccer” slogan. The company also has ordered more than 100,000 soccer balls with the “76” logo, to be sold at its service stations.

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SHIP TO SHOOT: The ship didn’t make it to D-day festivities at Normandy, but the SS Lane Victory, which is berthed in San Pedro, is still making a name for itself.

At the Show Biz Expo in Los Angeles last weekend, the ship’s operators pitched it as a venue for location shoots. U.S. Merchant Marine Veterans, a volunteer organization that runs the historic vessel, used a scale model of the ship to try to impress producers, directors and location managers.

“We are in that 30-mile ring around Hollywood, so it’s a very good location,” said Capt. John O. Smith, first vice president of the Merchant Marine organization. “There’s nothing else like it.”

The group charges producers $500 to $5,000 per day, depending on the size of the production. And although the Lane Victory’s brochures don’t match the slick material of city and state film conventions at the Expo, the vessel has had a steady stream of work.

“Amelia Earhart: Her Final Flight,” a movie that debuted Sunday on TNT, used it. Other productions have included “Naked Gun 2 1/2” and “Double Impact.” Several weeks ago, when Francis Ford Coppola was filming a new version of “Don Juan,” buildings near the Lane Victory’s berth were given face lifts to make it look as if the ship were in Arabian and Spanish ports.

In all, 30 productions in the past five years have used the ship, enough to make Smith and other shipmates old pros at making deals with show-biz types.

“Nothing surprises us about the industry,” he said. “But it is fascinating.”

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QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“We expect 1,000%. There’s no room for failure in this business.”

--Capt. Steve Saylors, in a makeshift classroom at Zuma Beach, on training at the tough Los Angeles County Lifeguard Academy.