Restaurant robberies: news vs. information.

These are the lazy days of late summer. A lot of businesspeople are on vacation. The freeway commute is as nice as it gets all year. Fewer phone calls, so it seems, as things take a break right before everything revs up again after Labor Day. A way to catch our breath a little during a very hot Valley summer.

Seems like there's sort of a lull--except in the restaurant robberies that are terrorizing restaurant workers and patrons across the Valley.

There has been a rash of robberies hitting mostly non-chain local eateries in the Valley such as the Valley Inn, Barone's and most recently Ca' Del Sol. Robbers wearing ski masks charge into the restaurants near closing time, rob the patrons and the restaurant and bar then leave.

The robberies kicked into high gear in March after a lull of several months. This summer, they have been of increasing frequency, scaring the daylights out of everybody.

Recently, I've found that the robberies are on a lot of readers' minds. Some are asking why we haven't written anything about these incidents that are affecting local businesses.

Here's the reason: I haven't felt that we could add anything constructive. The daily newspapers and broadcast media have been reporting on the robberies when they happen. They've also reported what police are doing about the situation and the various initiatives by chambers of commerce and other organizations to help the restaurants.

Except for reporting on our daily updated Web site, our status as a biweekly newspaper leaves us as looking very stale if we simply reported the incidents in our print edition many days after the robberies happen.

That leaves us with other options such as in-depth reporting or analysis of the situation. But this is where it gets difficult. We don't want to reveal what precautions the restaurants are taking to thwart the robbers. And we also don't want to give the robbers any ideas of what restaurants to hit by quoting some restaurant owners who have not been hit yet but may fit the mold of eateries that the robbers like to invade. We at the Business Journal would certainly hate to be responsible for someone getting hurt.

So being terribly creative with in-depth analysis of the situation could be risky.

But I'm writing this column because the business community and restaurant patrons need to be aware of what's going on out there. Not to stop eating out but to just be smart and prepared.

As patrons of our neighborhood restaurants, we need to watch their backs. Report anything that might help police about suspicious activities near restaurants.

The police suggest that restaurant owners themselves need to do some basic things like hiring security guards and locking doors as closing time nears.

One of the theories of why such restaurants are being targeted and banks less so is because banks have put in more sophisticated security systems over the years. Local restaurants haven't. So better security seems to be the key.

I'm confident the police will catch these guys. It's a big Valley. They can't be everywhere at all times. But the LAPD is as sophisticated as they come. They've undertaken an organized informational campaign for the business community to make them aware of what they can do to help thwart these robberies.

Let's try to cooperate.

As a newspaper and a voice for the Valley business community, we will publish articles about the robberies when we feel we have something constructive to contribute.

Business Journal Editor Jason Schaff can be reached at [phone] or at [e-mail]