Security Cameras Spur Debate

Huntington Park officials hope to reduce the fear of crime in the city’s thriving shopping district by using public surveillance cameras to stake out sidewalks and parking lots.

The cameras are the latest effort to curtail crime along Pacific Boulevard, a six-block corridor that has surpassed downtown Los Angeles’ Broadway and East Los Angeles’ Whittier Boulevard as Southern California’s most popular Latino shopping district.

The cameras--to be funded by a local businessman and run by the city--represent the most intense use of outdoor surveillance in Southern California, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which regards the plans with anxiety.

Huntington Park officials say that protecting the city’s tax base is a more tangible concern: The 600 merchants on the boulevard generate about $107 million in sales, contributing about one third of all city sales taxes.

The owner of a large shopping center at Pacific Boulevard and Florence Avenue has offered to pay $70,000 to install 29 outdoor cameras on buildings and light poles around the intersection.

The cameras will be monitored by police at a substation on the boulevard.

If the cameras are a success, city officials say, they will expand the program to the entire six-block shopping area.

Police hope the cameras will help them crack down on vandalism, car break-ins and illegal street sales of fake identification cards, known in Spanish as micas.

Once the cameras are installed--some time in the next few weeks--crews will install signs in English and Spanish notifying shoppers that they are under surveillance.

“We want people to know they are there,” said Assistant Police Chief Michael Visser.

Police say that crime on the boulevard has declined substantially in recent years because of an increase in police. But they say that there is room for improvement.

City officials hope the cameras will eliminate a lingering fear of crime that may be driving local shoppers to nearby indoor malls.

“In malls, you get a sense of security that you don’t get on an open street,” said Huntington Park Mayor Rosario Marin.

Business leaders say that Pacific Boulevard’s mushrooming success has been in part the result of fear of crime and vagrants on Broadway and Whittier Boulevard.

Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp, said Huntington Park officials are smart to beef up crime fighting efforts on Pacific Boulevard to keep the shopping district thriving.

“When you have success, you have to watch your rear,” he said.

In the last few years, surveillance cameras have become commonplace in retail centers, airports and even sports stadiums throughout the country.

The cities of Baltimore and Tacoma, Wash., for example, have used cameras to reduce crime in business and residential neighborhoods.

Still, ACLU officials in Southern California say that they are uncomfortable with training the cameras at public areas.

“It’s a slippery slope,” said Michael Klein, an attorney who heads the local ACLU’s 1st Amendment committee. “If you let the police put cameras in this place and that place, then they will be everywhere.” Klein said the increased use of cameras will raise the likelihood of abuse by government officials.

Merchants like Sam Majdi say that they welcome the cameras.

Majdi, the owner of a beauty supply store on Pacific, said he spends about $400 a month to clean up graffiti or repair scratched or broken windows caused by vandals.

“I’ve had customers say they don’t want to be in Huntington Park anymore,” he said.

The city’s half-mile of shopping draws customers from as far as Northridge and Santa Ana. On a daily basis, the thoroughfare bounces with the sounds of Latin music blaring from record shops and electronics stores.

The boulevard stores offer everything from posole and churros at El Gallo Giro to Stetson cowboy hats at any of half a dozen Western stores and satin wedding gowns and communion dresses at several bridal shops.

In 1993, crime on the boulevard was a serious problem that forced many merchants to consider moving to safer areas. Illegal street vendors, selling everything from fake identification cards to corn on the cob, operated on almost every corner.

But crime began to drop in 1995 when the city opened a police substation on the boulevard and launched police bicycle patrols.

In 1993, Huntington Park had 3,570 auto thefts, the second-highest rate in the state. By contrast, the city had only 717 automobile thefts last year, an 80% drop from 1993.

The number of serious crimes in the city dropped nearly 40% between 1995 and 1998, according to police officials.

Mayor Marin said city officials are considering installing call boxes on several street corners to give shoppers a direct line to police.

City officials also want to establish horse patrols, she said.