‘310-ers’ Find Way Around New Area Code Rule

The 310-ers, an old Hollywood hand once said (sorta), are different from you and me. True enough. But they do have this in common with the commoners: They tend to bristle when people mess with their sense of community.

When we last touched on the furor over the pending area code overlay in 310-ville--a kingdom that encompasses Malibu, Beverly Hills, Bel-Air, Manhattan Beach and such--they were yelling and lobbying and threatening to pull campaign contributions. At issue: a phone company mandate that has forced them to punch in 11 digits for every phone call, even if the phone they’re calling is next door.

The new fiat--preparation for plans this summer to give a new area code to all new phone customers in 310--took effect a month ago today. The yelling, lobbying, etc., continues unabated. But now, from the service entrance, comes news that, in the meantime, the 310 guerrillas are also subverting the 11-digit-dialing rule.

Word has it that the hottest item on the Westside this month is a little gizmo the size of a jewel box that lets disoriented 310-ers pretend that their old seven-digit world hasn’t changed.

“You have to understand,” said the estate manager for a well-known Westside multimillionaire who had a slew of the $60 gadgets installed two weeks ago, “the woman I work for has homes in Beverly Hills and Malibu and we’re on the phone constantly.

“The Malibu estate alone has 7 1/2 acres, a 20,000-square-foot main house, a guest house--there are probably 60 phones just on that property. We’re constantly calling back and forth, and every time you call now, you have to remember to dial 1-310, even though the area code is the same in both places, and if you forget, then the recording comes on, and you go, ‘Oh, shoot,’ and you have to hang up and dial again.”

Or, rather, they used to. Shortly after the onset of mandatory 11-digit dialing, the man who maintains their home entertainment system, Los Angeles electronics consultant Jamie Lieberman, told them about something called a redialer that he could program to automatically add one and the area code to any local call. It took Lieberman about two minutes to restore their ability to reach their neighbors with just seven digits.

Since then, Lieberman’s phone has been ringing off the wall.

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Without making too big a deal of 310-ville’s Lieberman Solution, I’d like to submit that there’s more going on here than a desire to avoid worn-out dialing hands. There has been much fuss over this area code business, and a good number of reasonable queries as to how, with all the world’s troubles, something as small as an extra four digits could evoke such Sturm und Drang.

They’re good questions. In the scheme of things, Kosovo this ain’t. And yet, from the look of my mailbag, area codes matter to a whole lot of people. Make that a whole, whole lot. “What it is, is, we’ve been robbed. We effectively have no area code now,” a friend in the Pacific Palisades fumed last week.

“We used to be 310. I liked being 310. And now they’ve stolen that.”

He’s not just talking phone numbers. He’s talking identity. How many things, in this massive metropolis, can large swaths of people genuinely claim in common, short of, maybe, this newspaper and the freeways? Not many. Not even our ZIP codes (with the exception, maybe, of 90210) translate easily.

But area codes are revealing. They say something about where you live, offer a hint about who you might be. Are you a 213 downtowner? A cautious, patrician 626? A gritty 323?

Do you make your home in the glitzy sands of 949, or in the more basic 714 or 562 (my turf) or 818? Are you a horsy-beachy Ventura dreamer in 805-land? Or are you a desert cowboy in 909? Small as they are, area codes are a secret language for Southern Californians. And I suspect it’s surprising how much it matters when you’re stripped of the pleasure of being on a seven-digit basis with--for lack of a better term--your crowd.

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Thus, the consolation of guys like Lieberman, who says he has been installing redialers for Westsiders at the rate of about 15 a week. “I haven’t advertised it,” he says, laughing. “So far, it’s all been word-of-mouth.”

Some clients have been celebrities, some have been plainer folk; frankly, he says, he’s been a little surprised at the gizmo’s popularity. But then again, he’s not a victim of overlay madness. Yet. And--a personal theory--he’s probably a little hard-bitten. Apparently he’s a citizen of 323.

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Shawn Hubler’s column runs Mondays and Thursdays. Her e-mail address is shawn.hubler@latimes.com