Office building security
in Santa Cruz.

Tenants by day, empty halls by night.

An office building downtown, on the Westside or along Mission Street lives two lives. From nine to five it’s tenants, clients, couriers and the occasional lost visitor who wandered in from the street. By seven it’s dark hallways, a half-empty garage and a back door someone forgot to pull shut.

A daytime officer greets people by name, sends visitors to the right floor and keeps a log of packages and couriers. At lockup, the same officer, or a patrol car on its overnight route, tries every exterior door, checks the bike room and garage levels and notes any light that’s out. Each stop is written down with the time.

Some offices sit on a small campus, two or three buildings sharing one lot. There a roving officer moves between the lobbies and the parking on a set loop, and each building gets its own entries in the report.

Bike rooms, garages and side doors

In a town where plenty of people bike to work, the bike room is often the most valuable unwatched space in an office building. Expensive bikes sit behind a door that tenants prop open on their way in. The garage and the side doors used by smokers and delivery drivers come a close second.

The officer checks each of those on every round, makes sure doors close behind people and notes any that are found open. Over a few weeks, the log shows which doors need a better closer and which tenants need a reminder.

Lockup, door by door

Lockup is the most important ten minutes of an office post. The officer walks every floor, tries each exterior door, checks the stairwells and makes sure the garage gate has closed. Lights that are out and windows left open go into the log.

Property managers get the shift report by email, with photos of anything unusual. For a lobby post, the unarmed officer page describes what the rest of the day looks like.