CASE STUDY
Promote Your Community and Strengthen Its Security A branded lock program enhances a community’s image while providing security for its assets. These days high-tech cybersecurity gets most
LOCK AMERICA has developed and marketed high-security locksandhardware since 1981. For more information, contact 800-422-2866, www.laigroup.com, or sales@laigroup.com.
RICH MORAHAN writesfrequently on security and marketing for the ATM,fuelmarketing, self-storage, and vending industries. You can contact him at 617-2400372, rmwriteg@ gmail.comorwww. rmorahan.com.
of the security crime headlines: hacks into data bases or financial transactions, electronic locks bypassed for unauthorized physical break-ins. But in the midst of twentyfirst century security attacks, it is important to keep one eye on the basic physical security in your municipal operation. Lax security measures with poor key control can lead to undetected access to doors, gates, utility boxes, and fuel dispensers. Lock America of Corona, California, has developed a municipal security lock program that delivers an added level of access security while enhancing a community’s public image. Lock America’s branded security locks ensure that every item is properly secured with a lock that promotes its municipal branding. Lake Elsinore is a city in western Riverside County, California. It has grown from a small resort town in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to a suburb with over 70,000 residents. Like most towns, its security infrastructure has grown over the years in bits and pieces without any comprehensive planning. The Lock America Security Lock Program has enabled Lake Elsinore to get a handle on its physical security. The Benefits of a Security Lock and Key Control System
If you can’t control the keys to your locks, they aren’t locks at all. If you can’t identify the location of every key at all times, you leave your operation open to an undetected break-in. It could be as simple as the theft of a tool box discovered months later, or an electrical box or curcuit compromised by unauthorized access. With gas prices soaring, those municipal gas pumps are tempting to professional and amateur thiefs alike, so it certainly makes sense to lock municipal pumps securely and to know who has the keys. A High Security Key Control System ensures that management knows who has access to every
8 | SPONSORED CONTENT | JUNE 2022
secured item or location. The system is based on a nonduplicatable key blank, with each individual key code registered, and replacements available only to authorized management. A secure master key allows management access. With this system, staff have access only where they are authorized, significantly reducing the opportunity for theft or misuse. Mangement knows who has access at any time. In an emergency, or during an audit for example, management’s master key provides immediate access. Why is a hardware lock system superior to a keypad access system? People write down their codes and share them occasionally, and there are other undetectable ways to breach electronic locks as well. In addition, an electronic system is expensive to install and maintain. A physical barrier limits access to an authorized identifiable key holder and management. With the Lock America system, locks of various sizes can all be based on the same type of key and branded with the city image, broadcasting a professional image to the public and providing visible evidence that a lock hasn’t been compromised and switched.
