Smile! You're on Buckhead's Camera

Smile and say “cheese” the next time you’re in the Buckhead bar and shopping district. Special surveillance cameras will be used to monitor people’s every move in an effort to cut down on crime.

With the cameras already in place, Atlanta police gave a public demonstration of how the 22 cameras worked Friday morning. Authorities say the extra sets of eyes will cover about 95 percent of the Buckhead area.

The camera system began running about 60 days ago at the Aaron Rents, Capital and Buckhead Plaza buildings. The Buckhead Alliance paid more than $100,000 for the high-tech surveillance cameras and monitors, which Atlanta police agreed to monitor and record at the Zone 2 precinct.

"It is a win-win in an effort to enhance the quality of life for the Buckhead area, the quality of life that Buckhead has always been known for and what people expect it to be known for," said Niko Karatassos of the Buckhead Alliance.

The security upgrade is the product of a group of local property owners who decided to take safety matters into their own hands.

“Lately, Buckhead has been like the ‘Wild Wild West’ and it’s got to stop,” Alliance president Robin Loudermilk told the Atlanta Business Chronicle in an interview last January. The Alliance was formed the month before.

“In the last six months, the people and the government – including Mayor [Shirley] Franklin and Chief of Police [Richard] Pennington – have realized that this is a black eye on the city, not a black/white issue. [The Buckhead Alliance] decided that something had to happen,” he said.

Last January, Alliance members reported raising $90,000 toward funding the camera system. The high-tech digital cameras can easily zoom in to show the characters on a license plate with the touch of a button.

Alliance members say the camera system’s wide-reaching presence in Buckhead should help “prevent crime, monitor late-night cruising and record possible traffic problems, while providing constant surveillance on the street,” police said.

Images recorded by the cameras will be stored for 30 days and then deleted, Atlanta police said.

They join earlier closing hours for bars in a citywide effort to crack down on crime. The Atlanta City Council voted last December to force bars to close an hour earlier, setting last call at 2:30 a.m. and closing time at 3 a.m.

In response, many bar owners considered taking their business to downtown’s Underground Atlanta, where a similar camera system is already in place.

A double murder in November 2003 sounded as the rallying call for Buckhead residents and business owners’ long-standing complaints of escalating crime and stagnant traffic on weekend nights. Two men died in a pre-dawn shootout outside of a local club.

Police statistics show nine people have been killed in the entertainment district since 2000.