Signal Staff Writer
jselva@the-signal.com
Posted: Nov. 4, 2009 12:02 a.m.
When the burglars come, deputies are urging business owners not to merely sit back and hope the cops arrive before the crooks escape.
Instead, they should use cameras, lighting and landscaping to fight back.
“The general public expects the Sheriff’s Department to do everything for them,” said Charlie Gill, president of Integrated Property Services Group in Valencia. “You have to take some responsibility for your own welfare and your own safety, and you have to do your part in reducing crime.”
That was the kind of attitude among business owners sheriff’s deputies encouraged at a Santa Clarita Sheriff’s Business Alliance seminar last week, where experts expounded on strategies to deter crime.
Business owners learned how to better secure their properties using security equipment, structural setup and even their natural surroundings, said Los Angeles County sheriff’s Sgt. Ron Shaffer.
He said businesses should be well-lit, but lighting should not be so bright that it washes out a person’s face or creates heavy shadows on surveillance camera footage.
“A shadow could be just as beneficial to the criminal as a wall, fence (or) bush,” Shaffer said.
Business owners and managers should also make sure to select camera systems that produce high quality images and have a good amount of storage space so past incidents can easily be reviewed, he added.
The lessons became especially relevant to Cordova Mobile Estates manager Julie Estrada. She attended the seminar just days before a burglary occurred over the weekend in the Canyon Country mobile home park.
Now she is working to start a neighborhood watch group and possibly enroll the company in a new business surveillance program run by the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station.
“We do have some surveillance (cameras), and we are hoping we can get that remotely hooked up with the Sheriff’s Department,” Estrada said of the program that started early last month.
Gill said his company uses cameras with a full-circuit television system he can view on his computer.
“It allows me to view the property from the desktop,” he said. “I can access it through the Internet, and I can see precisely what’s going on.”
One tip from the seminar Gill found useful was keeping surrounding brush and landscaping to a minimum so patrol deputies and others can easily monitor the business site, he said.
He also learned he can etch his company’s federal employer identification number or some other identifying mark onto the back of equipment and register the items with the local sheriff’s station.
Sgt. Shaffer said businesses also need to think about what customers should have access to as they strategize entrance and exit locations and choose which valuable pieces of merchandise should be presented in locked cases.
He posed a question business owners should ask themselves: “The nuts and bolts of it is: How are you deterring people from coming into your business, picking up your merchandise and walking out with it?”
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