Shutdown of Outdoor ATMs at Night Urged

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

Los Angeles City Atty. James Hahn and Councilman Nate Holden stood Thursday 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.

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.

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

“In the hours of darkness, people are more vulnerable. It’s time to say enough is enough,” Hahn said. “It is going to be an inconvenience for the public . . . but I think it’s a small price to pay.”

He compared the restrictions to laws requiring motorists to buckle up before they hit the road. “Seat belts save lives and they used to be optional,” Hahn said.

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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. These areas also lack an abundance of markets with cash machines.

“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.

The initiative underscores the ongoing tug of war between the conveniences of technology and their accompanying risks. In Los Angeles County, three people in as many months have been killed while making ATM withdrawals after dark.

Two of those slayings have occurred within Los Angeles city limits. (The other L.A. incident was at a Home Savings of America branch in South-Central on Vermont Avenue in July.) The incidents have been deeply disturbing to many bank customers, even though bank and police statistics have shown ATM crime to be extremely rare.

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.

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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.”

But to the less sanguine, convenience seemed dispensable, compared to the risk of injury or worse. At a Sherman Oaks bank, where a pregnant woman was stabbed to death during a March 1993 carjacking, one busy shopper who had just retrieved cash from an outside ATM applauded the City Council’s consideration of shorter hours.

“You close them down at night, you just may save a life,” hairdresser Julene Sinatra said. “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.”

To that end, 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.