Curbs Urged on Nighttime Use of ATMs

Amid widespread unease about violence after dark at automated teller machines, three Los Angeles officials called Thursday for a citywide shutdown of outdoor ATMs after dark.

Los Angeles City Atty. James Hahn and Councilman Nate Holden stood with Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas to announce their support for a proposal made by Ridley-Thomas in the wake of an attack Sunday. Symbolically, they gathered outside a Crenshaw district bank where a man was shot while making a 3 a.m. withdrawal.

It was the third killing in as many months of someone making a nighttime withdrawal from an ATM in Los Angeles County. The incidents have been deeply disturbing to many bank customers, even though bank and police statistics have shown ATM crime to be extremely rare.

The proposed restriction would not apply to the burgeoning number of bank machines that are in supermarkets, malls and other businesses, as well as in 13 Los Angeles Police Department substations and five other LAPD facilities. But it would curtail operations at hundreds of other ATMs outside branch banks.

There was mixed reaction from consumers and dismay from the banking industry, which denounced the measure as a Draconian response to a rare, albeit lethal, risk. New police statistics show there were 45 ATM robberies in the entire city of Los Angeles last year, compared with about 300,000 serious crimes reported annually to the LAPD.

Meanwhile, at City Hall, chances of passing what would be the nation’s most stringent ATM safety law seemed low. At least four members of the 15-member council said the measure went too far, and none of the others were willing to embrace it fully.

Hahn conceded “it is going to be an inconvenience for the public” but said that is “a small price to pay,” comparing the proposed shutdown to requiring seat belts in cars by placing public safety over individual convenience.

But the proposal set off a round of public dialogue about how much freedom society should surrender to protect itself.

At the Great Western Bank branch on Woodman Avenue in Sherman Oaks, where a pregnant Sherri Foreman was stabbed to death in March 1993, one customer praised the proposal. “It makes sense,” she said. “With all the criminal scum around, I don’t even go to outdoor ATMs after dark. I go to a grocery store where it’s safe.”

Naomi Spina, another ATM customer, disagreed.

“Absolutely not,” she said. “This is the big city. The risks are always going to be there. What are they going to start closing down next? Nighttime bus stops? Gas stations? These nighttime tellers are not different than walking into a 7-Eleven, and you don’t see them closing those down.”

Valley hairdresser Julene Sinatra backed the idea. “You close them down at night, you just may save a life. And for those people who complain about the inconvenience, I say, ‘Get a life!’ It wasn’t that long ago we didn’t even have these things. People adapt to whatever they have to.”

But Joe Coyle, an actor recently arrived from New York City, called the proposal “insane.”

“New Yorkers would riot in the streets if somebody proposed that,” he said. “If banks are going to provide these services, they should provide security--all night security if need be. They’re the ones making a killing on these things. So they should foot the bill for better security.”

Kathy Graham, vice president of marketing and communications for the Los Angeles Police Federal Credit Union, said that 13 LAPD stations and five other LAPD facilities now have ATMs available to the public 24 hours a day--partly in reaction to the Sherman Oaks killing in 1993.

“The goal is . . . to get an ATM into every LAPD station,” Graham said.

However, she acknowledged that the cash machines have not been well-publicized.

“Bottom line: The majority of transactions on those ATMs are still our members”--LAPD employees and their families, Graham said. “It’s just an awareness issue which we’re trying to work on through a number of different avenues.”

Meanwhile, bankers warned that such a shutdown would force millions of consumers to do without a service that they have taken for granted for more than 15 years. Moreover, several said, the measure would all but eliminate after-hours banking in areas such as South-Central and East Los Angeles that have historically complained about a shortage of financial institutions.

“We may be pushing a solution to one policy problem while exacerbating another,” said Ian Campbell, a spokesman for Great Western Bank, at whose branch this week’s slaying occurred. Great Western this week placed the ATM at Crenshaw Boulevard and Vernon Avenue on daylight-only hours in deference to Sunday’s death, but Campbell and other bankers said enactment of such restrictions should be left up to banks, based on case-by-case review.

Indeed, even as bank machine use has soared, robberies and attempted robberies at ATMs in the city of Los Angeles have plummeted during the last few years, from about 20 a month in 1992 to about 7 a month this year, LAPD statistics show.

Bank officials attribute the drop to safety and public education measures adopted industrywide, and to state legislation passed several years ago mandating minimum standards for lighting and visibility around bank machines.

“This type of proposal would prove enormously disruptive to the residents of Los Angeles, while offering nothing to combat the real problem, which is street crime,” said David Burgess, spokesman for the California Bankers Assn.

In the lunch hour lines that snaked from the city’s ATMs on Thursday, many customers agreed.

“We live on ATMs--that’s just a fact. I don’t even go into banks anymore because I can’t stand the lines,” said Steve Karwoski, a 31-year-old waiter in Brentwood, as he grabbed some cash from a Bank of America machine in Westwood.

“For the past two nights, I’ve gone to ATMs after work, at about 11 p.m. I was a little concerned, but I had to deposit money because my rent check was floating.”

Arturo Vargas, who was withdrawing money from a machine at the Great Western Bank on Victory Boulevard in North Hollywood, said he was unworried, even at night, because the area is busy until late.

He has never used the ATMs located in police stations. “I want something close, right in my neighborhood, so I just go to the 7-Eleven. The whole idea is to have something close by.”

But proponents said they have a duty to do what they can to make bank customers feel safe. Ridley-Thomas, who represents the district in which Sunday’s slaying occurred, said he is unswayed by the fact that the average bank customer is statistically twice as likely to be struck by lightning than to be held up at a bank machine. “We don’t control lightning,” Ridley-Thomas said. “We want it to be as safe at Crenshaw and Vernon as it is on Mulholland or Sepulveda.”

Times staff writers John Glionna, Jodi Wilgoren, Henry Chu, Sandy Banks and Matea Gold contributed to this story.

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ATM Crime

According to a survey by the California Bankers Assn., there were about 500 ATM crimes (robbery, attempted robbery or other crime involving property or safety of customer at an ATM) in California in 1992.

Time of night most of the crimes occurred.

Sources: California Bankers Assn.; Los Angeles Police Department