Being Safe, Sorry.

Business Disruptions Mount as Precautions Get Imposed

Los Angeles, perfector of road rage, is stuck in a bind.

Forget LAX, with its two- to three-hour pre-boarding waits. The security crawl has now hit every corner of town, from office buildings to movie studios to government offices and courthouses.

"I don't imagine it's going more than a month before people start losing their temper," said Officer Michael Davis of Los Angeles Police Department's West Traffic Division. "This is the city of Los Angeles. People are in a hurry to get to whatever their business is. You have two people with American flags on their cars and bumper stickers that say 'America Unite' who are flipping each other off."

Signs of the increased emphasis on security were visible all over town last week, from the eight 8,000-pound concrete slabs placed on the Fifth Street side of the Library Tower to bomb-sniffing dogs at Warner Bros. in Burbank.

There were a maze of barriers set up downtown, blocking vehicular and pedestrian traffic between Los Angeles and Judge John Aiso streets and between First and Temple streets.

Security at City Hall and City Hall East doubled, with guards manning metal detectors and searching employees' personal belongings. Barricades surround both City Hall buildings.

Ongoing delays

On Columbus Day, detailed ID checks at Century City office buildings resulted in a line stretching into Beverly Hills. While congestion at Century Plaza eased as the week went on, hassles getting into Paramount Pictures proved ongoing.

The studio wouldn't comment on the specifics of its security measures, but police said traffic was lined up a half mile in each direction of Melrose Avenue through last week's morning rush hour.

"It's backed up way east of Western Avenue and west of Gower Street," said Capt. Michael Downing of the LAPD. "It's functional but congested."

Over at Warner Bros., tighter security is expected to become a way of life. In addition to the dogs, there were trunk searches and identification card checks. The studio has reduced the number of entranceways, limited deliveries to a single entrance, and set up metal detectors.

"It doesn't matter if you know the first name of the (security) guy at the gate," said Barbara Bogliatti, senior vice president for corporate communications at Warner, which has as many as 10,000 people on its lot per day. "He's checking your ID and your trunk. We're looking at these as possible permanent changes rather than temporary ones."

Limited access

At the request of tenants, some property owners have added additional security and placed floors in a "lockdown mode" -- accessible only by a card key -- in lieu of searching cars. As a result, those tenants are experiencing little or no gridlock entering their parking structures.

Brentwood-based Arden Realty Inc., for instance, has beefed up the number of guards patrolling the garage, lobby and outside grounds of its 24-story World Savings Bank Building, at 11601 Wilshire Blvd. Tenants there must approve all packages before deliverers are allowed past the lobby.

"We are maintaining a higher level of security with a balance of tenant convenience," said Robert Accomando, Arden's first vice president of asset management.

With building managers calling the shots, guards said the only way they can quicken the process is for drivers to have their driver's licenses and company identification badges ready for inspection before coming onto company grounds.

"When people don't come prepared, it slows the line down," said Kevin Hall, director of operations for Culver City-based Cooke Protective Services Inc., which provides services for entertainment studios, sports complexes and amusement parks. "We have to educate the (workers) to be prepared. They're not used to such intrusiveness,"

To alleviate the inconvenience, office workers at the Century Plaza towers were issued electronic cards that automatically raise the parking gate bar as they drive through a designated aisle. But in an example of the crosscurrents now being felt, some drivers were not impressed because the cards could be easily stolen or passed along to a third party.

Jon Meer, a labor litigation partner with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, said it takes him an extra hour to get into his Century Plaza office. Add to that an extra 30-minute wait every time he heads to court (Los Angeles Superior Court guards now search each box of files, which used to be sent through a metal detector, one-by-one), and Meer has tacked as much as two hours onto a workday.

He has stopped taking work home at night to spare himself the delay of getting the files checked through garage security the following morning. And his staff, delayed by added security in the mornings, arrives at the office late but leaves at its regularly scheduled time (that's a practice he let slide in the weeks following the attacks but one which he will soon halt).

Time, money, comfort

Clients' expectations are the same, but the time it takes to execute has increased, and so have Meer's bills -- by about 10 percent.

"Clients have complained because things take longer and the bills are higher," said Meer. "I say, 'Gosh, it took me an hour longer to get into court this morning to stand in line."'

Lawyers can pass along the cost of delays, but there are others who don't have that luxury.

Rica Van Ausdall, who owns Hollywood Famous Florists & Gifts, said additional traffic and security check points have cut into the number of deliveries each driver can make, from 20 to 10 a day. With flower arrangements costing $35 to $500 each and gifts ranging from $20 to $100, the company is losing a lot of business.

"It creates an inconvenience because of the time that is consumed and die flowers are not getting to the recipient immediately after they are delivered. We understand that everyone's safety comes first, but it's affecting our business economically?'