Officers buckle down on seat-belt law Just...

Officers buckle down on seat-belt law

Just three days into its heightened seat belt enforcement

campaign, Laguna Beach police officers had issued nearly 100

citations.

A typical day nets about five to 10 seat belt citations, Traffic

Sgt. Jason Kravetz said, but 168 hours of overtime paid to enforcing

officers left 98 unbuckled drivers with tickets by Thursday morning’s

tally.

“So far, it’s actually a lot more tickets than I expected,”

Kravetz said. “We’ve given officers the discretion to issue warnings,

so the number could be a lot higher. Hopefully, the numbers will

decrease as the word gets out.”

Kravetz said he’d already heard about 10 seat-belt citations come

in on the radio by 9:30 a.m. Thursday, so he guessed the number was

probably at about 110 since Monday, when the enforcement period

began.

“Drivers’ excuses have stayed the same, we’ve just been hearing

more of them,” Kravetz said.

Not all of the $10,000 grant has been allocated to overtime hours

yet, Kravetz said, so he has a cushion to bolster enforcement efforts

soon before Nov. 30, when the period ends.

Police looking for open house bandits

Two Realtors and one homeowner reported that three men had stolen

or tried to steal merchandise from three houses being shown to

potential buyers on Sunday.

A Realtor showing a house in the 1000 block of Balboa Avenue told

police she had a digital camera worth $700 stolen by two teenagers

while an older man kept her occupied with questions at around 3 p.m.

Police had received a call describing a similar situation at 2:32

p.m. on Tia Juana Street and then received another at 5:45 p.m. from

a Realtor on Nyes Place. The Realtor on Balboa Avenue was the only

victim, police said.

The woman on Tia Juana Street, selling the house without a

Realtor, called police after forcing the three suspects to leave

before they could steal anything. She said she could hear the two

younger suspects going through her drawers upstairs as the older man

kept her busy. She told police she was immediately suspicious of them

because of how poorly they were dressed.

The three suspects approached the Realtor on Balboa Avenue while

she posted signs for her open house, police said, asking her to

direct them to the house so they could see it. She discovered her

digital camera missing after they left and provided virtually

identical descriptions of the suspects to police.

The Realtor on Nyes Place forced the two young suspects to empty

their pockets before they left, and she discovered nothing missing

after catching them rummaging through jewelry drawers in the home’s

master bedroom.

Anyone with information about the suspects should call the Laguna

Beach Police at (949) 497-0701.