One year ago, Tony Russo, a co-owner of Aries Fine Wine & Spirits in White Plains, said installing a surveillance camera system at his business was something he wanted to do but felt a city ordinance forcing him to do so infringed on his personal rights.
One year later ”” and a month after certain city businesses were supposed to have purchased and installed surveillance systems ”” Russo said, “Nobody likes to be forced to spend money, but when you think about it, it”™s really a benefit.”
Russo said the business is still in the process of buying and installing the cameras, and thinks it will need four or five for the roughly 3,500-square foot store.
“You have to figure 500 bucks for the installation and the cost of it,” he said. “It can be a significant expense for somebody and that”™s why it”™s taken us some time to pick the right one.”
The law, adopted by the White Plains Common Council, requires all stores that sell alcohol, cash checks or buy or sell precious metals, as well as pharmacies, pawn shops and any other shop open between midnight and 4 a.m., install surveillance cameras and store videos for at least a week after recording.
The cameras must be outfitted by each entrance or exit regularly used by customers or employees. They must film during business hours and two hours after closing, and should be able to have a clear focus on an individual”™s face who enters or exits the facility within about 15 feet of the doors, the law says.
White Plains Commissioner of Public Safety David E. Chong said his department received little pushback from business owners.
“It”™s a very affordable system. They could go to any vendor that they wanted,” he said. “Most of them have camera systems anyway.”
Kevin Nunn, executive director of the White Plains Business Improvement District, also said he had not heard any grumblings from businesses after the bill passed.
“There were a couple of businesses, primarily because of costs, that had concerns” about the ordinance, Nunn said. But for an organization that usually supports less regulation, Nunn said, this was an instance where you “might overcome your natural instinct as a business organization.”
Russo said he hoped the cameras would help him catch people using fraudulent credit cards at his shop.
“If they go in and use a stolen credit card to buy product, it”™s like that product is money,” he said. “So the cameras are quite a good idea.”
Gene Mjeshtri, the manager at USA Service Pro Auto Shop on Mamaroneck Avenue, said he was relieved he had installed cameras at his service station after his business was robbed of about $90,000 recently.
“Without the cameras I don”™t think we were going to get anything,” Mjeshtri said, adding that the business installed the surveillance equipment about five years ago.
White Plains police arrested a Mount Vernon man in the robbery and charged him with grand larceny.
The arrest, Chong said, was “strictly due to us being able to retrieve video and releasing it to the mass media. We were flooded with phone calls and tips.”
The White Plains police department does not plan on inspecting shops that are supposed to have the cameras, but if the video is needed and is not available, store owners who haven”™t properly installed the equipment could be subject to $250-a-day fines and up to 15 days in jail.
