Metal detector added to council chambers

Sito Negron

Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2003 | 9:15 a.m.

Visitors will be passing through a metal detector at next week's Las Vegas City Council meeting, although the safety device won't actually be in operation until the following meeting Oct. 15.

City Manager Doug Selby said the equipment is being added as a result of "a continuous look at security."

The device, a $4,800 Meter 200 Multi-Zone metal detector produced by Metorex Security Products, will be placed at one entrance to the council chambers. The second entrance will become exit only, said Wayne Griffin, deputy chief with the field services division of the city's Detention and Enforcement Department.

"I think we're just going to put the machine there to give folks an idea of what they can expect," Griffin said of the Oct. 1 council meeting. He said he expects the machine to be fully operational by the Oct. 15 council meeting.

In addition to the metal detector, other security measures in effect at council chambers include sweeps by a bomb-sniffing dog before meetings, surveillance cameras, and barriers that physically separate officials on the dais from the public.

Selby said there are no plans to add metal detectors in the main City Hall building, which is next to council chambers.

"We try to maintain as much open access to the public as we can, and at City Hall we need to allow the public a little more freedom," he said. "I don't see metal detectors throughout City Hall. It may come to that someday, but that's not our priority right now."

Security has become a greater concern for government bodies in recent years. A fatal shooting took place in New York City in July after a man accompanying a council member walked into City Hall with a gun.

Selby said Las Vegas City Council members, who have a separate entrance to council chambers, will not have to pass through the metal detector. If someone accompanies them, he said, that person will be scanned with a metal-detecting wand.

Las Vegas also has a metal detector at the entrance to the Municipal Courts, located in the same building complex as City Hall and council chambers.