SHERMAN OAKS : Drop-In Police Center to Open Soon

A drop-in police center will open at the corner of Ventura Boulevard and Dixie Canyon Avenue at the end of this month.

Howard C. Goldman, the Neighborhood Watch member who has led efforts to establish the center, said the facility will not have all the trappings of an official Los Angeles Police Department substation, but will be similar.

The center--one office in the King Realty offices at 13369 Ventura Blvd.--can be used by police officers to eat meals, interview suspects and witnesses and coordinate local crime fighting programs, Goldman said.

If police can be encouraged to spend more time in Sherman Oaks, Goldman believes, public safety will improve.

“There’s a perception that we don’t have a crime problem, and I’d like to dispel that myth,” said Goldman, a retired probation officer. “This area has been hit pretty hard in terms of crime.”

The community activist said that armed robbers have held up store owners near the planned drop-in center, and that his own mother had her purse snatched in broad daylight.

The local Neighborhood Watch group also will carry out its programs from the center, whose furnishings at the moment include a desk, a chair and a phone. King Realty has donated the office space, and the community security group will pay for the phone from proceeds of a fund-raiser it held in April.

Goldman said he’d like to provide police officers with a fax, computer, file cabinets, television and mini-refrigerator, if he can find someone willing to donate them.

Unlike a substation, the drop-in center will not have a holding facility for suspects, be staffed regularly by LAPD officers or be funded by the police department.

Goldman is hopeful, however, that one day the drop-in center will be upgraded to a substation. He said that happened in Northridge several years ago.

To celebrate the center’s opening, the local Neighborhood Watch will throw a party from noon to 3 p.m. on Saturday, July 30. The public is invited to the free reception, which will feature picnic food, a professional bird act and a country-Western band.

Goldman said the center lets the police know that the community cares about them.

“By offering this type of thing we’re showing them the respect that they deserve,” he said.