BUSINESS WATCH BRANCHES OUT; LAPD PLANNING TO EXPAND MERCHANT CRIME AWARENESS PROGRAM.

Byline: Deborah Sullivan Daily News Staff Writer

Driving down Sepulveda Boulevard, Flip Smith pointed out accomplishments of the area's Business Watch, a commercial cousin to Neighborhood Watch, in which merchants combat burglary, bad checks and blight.

Since the Sepulveda Business Watch formed in 1988, police and merchants have made the area more attractive to customers and less inviting to crooks, said Smith, a community activist and local tire retailer. And now it is a template of sorts for police looking to expand and improve similar programs across the city.

Neat rows of flowers or palm trees brighten shops and gas stations. Several stretches of sidewalk are swept clean daily by adjacent establishments.

What's not visible is just as important: You don't see drug dealing, prostitution or graffiti like you did in the past, Smith said.

Police and business leaders aim to launch similar programs in every business area in the city. Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks made Business Watch a priority in his January reorganization of the department, and declared May Business Watch Month.

And the Valley Economic Alliance is set to release a brochure explaining how to form one yourself. Police are watching the effort to see if such a drive might be duplicated elsewhere in Los Angeles.

``If there is not a thriving business community, people will leave the area to shop,'' said Capt. Kyle Jackson of the LAPD's Van Nuys Division.

``Ultimately if businesses move outside the city of Los Angeles, that will begin our city's spiral toward urban decay. And that is something we cannot afford in this great city.''

Although Business Watch has been part of the Los Angeles Police Department's community programs since 1969, the associations are few and far between compared to Neighborhood Watch, which has mushroomed in suburban communities throughout the city.

The Police Department doesn't know exactly how many Neighborhood Watch and Business Watch groups there are in the Valley, but expects to get a count next month. But Valley Bureau Commander Mike Bostic said participants are clearly a small fraction of the total.

``Business Watch, if we're lucky, is somewhere between 5 and 7 percent of the total of Neighborhood Watch participants,'' he said.

To boost participation, Chief Parks separated Business Watch from Neighborhood Watch and assigned it to the detective captain of each division during his January reorganization of the department.

``Neighborhood Watch has experienced a tremendous amount of attention and effort on the part of the department and the community,'' Bostic said. ``So we're trying to build that same kind of effort and concentration on Business Watch.''

Although police officials said no statistics are available on whether Business Watch lowers crime rates, members say their vigilance pays off.

Confronted with aggressive panhandlers, members of the Sepulveda Business Watch distributed information cards listing shelters and soup kitchens instead of donating dollars.

If a business lets its image slide, members mail form letters urging the owner to fix it up.

``This whole area has really cleaned up,'' Smith said. ``And a lot of it is peer pressure. When they see other people cleaning up, they get the hint that they want to clean up too.''

The Business Watch got the city to paint curbs red in front of hotels frequented by prostitutes so drivers couldn't stop to solicit sex.

The Sepulveda Boulevard Hotel Motel Watch, an offshoot of the Business Watch, bought a cellular phone for the Van Nuys Police Division's vice car so merchants can call in streetwalker sightings directly. And they formed a phone tree to warn nearby hotels about troublesome guests.

``We want them out of the Valley,'' said Harold Peskin, general manager of Carriage Inn. ``If we just keep passing them around, that continues the problem.''

Other Business Watch groups in the Valley address slightly different concerns.

The Van Nuys Boulevard Business Watch is looking at alley lighting, abandoned buildings and car break-ins, said dentist Robert Fields.

The Sun Valley Business Watch grew out of a task force on day-laborer hiring sites and expanded to cover other public safety issues, co-chairman Tom McCarty said.

At a recent meeting of the Panorama City Business Watch, discussion centered on gangs.

Nob Hill Banquet and Conference Center manager George Demirjian wondered how he could legally exclude gang members from weekend dances without discriminating against youths sporting hip-hop fashions.

``It's hard to tell who's in a gang and who's not,'' Sgt. Randy Hoffmaster of the Van Nuys Division agreed.

``We can't tell,'' Demirjian said. ``Usually they're OK. But we turn away everyone with baggy pants.''

``Well, you're setting a standard and that's OK,'' Hoffmaster assured him.

In hopes of replicating the successes of Sepulveda Boulevard and other Business Watch groups, the Valley Economic Alliance is promoting the program with a brochure and how-to manual due out in the next month.

``If that works,'' Jackson said, ``we want to go citywide.''