By Andrew Cohen By Andrew Cohen

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L
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O
C
K
E
R
R
HEAVY
O
O
M
S
USE, MOISTURE
—
AND ESPECIALLY VANDALS
—
CAN FRUSTRATE FACILITY
OWNERS HOPING TO GET
HIGH PERFORMANCE OUT OF
THEIR LOCKERS.
The best lockers are metal — strong, solid, secure. Except that the best lockers are plastic, which
are impervious to the moisture common in locker rooms. But then, of course, the finest locker rooms
almost invariably feature lockers made of wood, which are aesthetically pleasing, both visually and
aurally.
The same goes for lock mechanisms. The best method of securing lockers is to require users to provide their own combination locks, as it shifts an administrative burden away from overworked staff
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Dale Hall Photographic
By Andrew Cohen
ATHLETIC BUSINESS
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members. Then again, providing locks,
whether opened with combinations, keys,
cards or coins, gives facility owners
another source of needed revenue.
Most respondents blamed
problems not so much on locker
materials or locking systems,
but on the impact of vandalism in
the locker room.
The best lockers and locker systems? It
really depends on the person doing the
buying, the particulars of a specific facility’s design and the level of oversight in
locker areas — among other factors, such
as budget. The best low-priced lockers
might be perfect for one kind of facility
and unacceptable to another.
hese simple truths were on our collective mind this spring as we set about
trying to gauge AB readers’ satisfaction
with their locker systems. An informal
survey, sent via e-mail to a random sample of high school, college recreation, public recreation/YMCA and health club
professionals, garnered a response rate
that might suggest widespread indifference to lockers in general. However, those
T
who did respond had much to say about
their lockers’ ability to withstand almost
constant abuse.
Metal lockers were the clear marketshare leader, making up 75 percent of the
sample. Laminate lockers were next (14
percent), followed by wood (8 percent),
plastic (2 percent) and phenolic (1 percent). Not surprisingly, metal dominated
all categories except health clubs, where
laminate led with 46 percent, followed by
metal (29 percent) and wood (25 percent).
On the whole, respondents are satisfied
with their lockers’ performance. With the
exception of three subcategories (metal in
scratch resistance and noise-reduction
quality, and wood in scratch resistance),
all locker materials rated fairly well, and
consistently so. (The other categories
rated were moisture resistance, maintainability and longevity.)
Still, 41 percent of respondents said they
would change their lockers if they could,
and 24 percent said they’d like to change
their locking system. Their locker troubles
run the gamut, from problems with moisture (take your pick: rust or delamination)
to sizing issues (some complained that
their lockers do not take into account the
huge gym bags patrons tend to carry these
days). Metal lockers, the industry’s biggest
seller, lagged in four of five categories (see
“Good Lock,” p. 83), but no locker type
escaped criticism of some kind.
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AB SEPT-lockers
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What really became clear was that
most respondents — a notable exception
being those with laminate lockers in highhumidity areas — blamed problems not
so much on locker materials or locking
systems, but on the impact of vandalism
in the locker room. Every kind of locker, it
seems, is vulnerable to thieves.
There hasn’t been a technological
breakthrough in lockers that
can’t be broken.
The locker theft problem is widespread. Scan recent police reports and
newspaper accounts, and you’ll find incidents occurring week after week in community after community:
• June 21, Pelham Manor, N.Y. Personal
papers are stolen from a man’s locker at
the Omni Health and Fitness Complex.
• June 13, Irvine, Calif. Two diamond
rings are stolen from a locker at the Sporting Club.
• June 7, Orlando, Fla. Gold and diamond jewelry, a calculator and a watch
are stolen from a gym locker during dance
tryouts at Deltona High School.
• May 30, Fairfax, Va. Two wallets are
stolen from lockers at two different gyms.
• May 23, Providence, R.I. A student is
charged in a string of 11 thefts (netting
$508) from Smithfield High School lockers.
• May 21, Warrenville, Ill. Four separate
thefts from lockers at a fitness center net
thieves more than $780 in cash, a watch, a
bracelet and several credit cards.
• May 18, Annapolis, Md. A $6,000 watch
is stolen from a locker at Gold’s Gym.
Larger-scale criminal activity also
appears to be on the rise at every type of
facility. The Brooklyn (N.Y.) South police
precinct reported in June that 65 thefts
had taken place in health clubs (most at
Bally Total Fitness clubs) within the previous 18 months. In May, the Poway, Calif.,
Unified School District announced a new
emphasis on surveillance after a year in
which 230 separate acts of locker vandalism and theft occurred, causing $133,350
in vandalism damage alone. And in April,
in the Boston area, a seven-person theft
ring was finally cracked by the state’s
Secret Service Financial Organized Crime
Task Force. The thieves, a group of
friends, typically used one-day passes to
get into upscale health clubs, where they
stole credit cards from lockers and purchased hundreds of thousands of dollars
worth of merchandise that was then
traded for cash or drugs. One of the suspects assaulted two undercover police
officers who caught him breaking into
lockers.
Locker break-ins are of two general
types: Those in which the locker is
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forcibly opened and damaged, leaving no
doubt that a crime has occurred, and
those in which light-fingered thieves carefully open lockers and remove valuables.
Sometimes very carefully: What made the
thieves in the Boston ring so hard to
apprehend was their selectivity. Many
health-club users would find just one
credit card or a couple of bills missing —
leaving some doubting whether their loss
occurred at the club.
Michael Davanzo, athletic administrator for Medina (Ohio) City Schools, says
his district experienced the more violent
brand of theft — repeatedly.
“We had metal half-lockers that had diamond-shaped vents on the front that were
large enough for fingers to fit through,”
says Davanzo. “The way they were
designed, students were able to bend the
bottoms out and steal stuff with the padlocks still on the lockers. We ended up
having to put wood on the bottoms of all
the lockers to cover all the holes — and
now we’re getting new lockers.”
As Davanzo notes, his locker problems
haven’t been limited to that particular
design. He previously had tall lockers
whose lock mechanism consists of three
catches inside a handle that the user
slides upward to open. Students had two
standard methods of breaking in: Repeatedly yank upward on the handle (locks
would occasionally loosen up enough to
open), or place a small object at the bottom of the latch slot that prevents the bottom catch from latching (locker contents
could be removed through the gap). But
the destruction of the half-lockers hurt
particularly, because they were the ones
Davanzo had wanted all along and specified at his first opportunity.
“The manufacturer’s rep who sold
them to me hung on them to show me
how strong they were,” he recalls. “I was
kind of surprised when things turned out
the way they did.”
Ruth Olsen’s metal lockers suffered a
slightly more subtle, but equally devastating attack, one that took months of
sleuthing and retrofitting to understand
and respond to. Olsen, director of intra-
murals and coordinator of the student
recreation center at the University of
Alaska-Fairbanks, had a “tremendous
problem” with thieves who opened
unused lockers and bent latching pins in
the locker doors. Returning after the lockers were in use, they would then give a
yank and open the still-locked lockers.
Unlike what occurred in Medina, AlaskaFairbanks’ students would return to a
locker that was still locked and seemingly
undisturbed, only to find their wallets,
purses and jewelry gone.
Olsen first set up a sting to trap what
she assumed was one smart and strong
perpetrator. She posted a sign saying that
one of the locker rooms was temporarily
closed for maintenance, and rigged a
Percentage of respondents rating their lockers
“Very Good” or “Excellent” in:
Metal
Others
Longevity......................................74 ........................73
Maintainability .............................70 ........................87
Moisture-resistance .....................59 ........................71
Scratch-resistance .......................54 ........................71
Noise-reduction quality ................12 ........................72
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the type found on many laminate lockers,
which have none of the latching problems
previously noted but are easily disabled
(accidentally or not) by broken or lost
keys.
One specifier of lockers for a national
chain of recreational facilities (who would
prefer to remain nameless) says she’ll
stick to metal lockers, thank you.
“Locking mechanisms on typical laminate lockers can be sabotaged discreetly
with a bicycle wrench,” she says. “It’s easy
“Plastic lockers seem to be
impervious to vandalism. Kids
cannot destroy them.”
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silent alarm on a locker door, behind
which was planted a wallet containing
permanent ink. Caught red-handed by a
waiting officer, the suspect eventually fled
the courthouse at his arraignment
through an emergency door and was on
the lam for the next three months.
In the meantime, Olsen enlisted the
help of the locker manufacturer to find a
solution to the problem latches. The manufacturer sent replacement latch pins, as
well as small metal plates to cover them.
Over the next several months, Olsen’s
staff replaced all the bent pins and
installed the new pin guards, after which
— with the suspect again in custody —
the vandalism, and the thefts, continued.
“He wasn’t the only guy, apparently,”
Olsen says. “It was a real fiasco.”
Of the pin guards, Olsen says, “It could
have worked. It could have made it so
thieves would really have to work to bend
it. But what it actually did was give them
something they could use as leverage to
bend it even easier. The tab covered the
pin so it was harder to get to, but it ended
up being a piece that they could use to
their advantage.”
Olsen now has eight video cameras in
the rec center. She has not, but cagily
allows students to speculate that she
might have, installed cameras in the locker
rooms, too. She went to another locker
manufacturer, who sent her standard
metal clasps through which padlocks are
attached, and Olsen’s staff welded one
onto each of the building’s 600 lockers. “It
looks ugly,” she says, “but it’s secure.”
now this: There hasn’t been a technological breakthrough in lockers that
can’t be broken. And it doesn’t take
thieves to create serious management hassles — consider, for example, key locks of
K
for a thief to loosen the bolts on the inside
of the locker door. The latch-tab inside
the door remains in the down position
and does not engage the locker frame
when the member padlocks the door.
When the member leaves, the thief casually and effortlessly opens the door without touching the latch, removing the
contents without notice. The member
returns to an empty locker and a padlock
that has not been tampered with.”
Bob Spears, vice president of facilities
and property management for the YMCA
of Greater Kansas City, can relate to this
specifier’s experience. He has long battled
the laminate lockers in four of the 13 Ys
he oversees — from regular use and from
thieves.
“There’s a metal hinge on these lockers’
doors that has a spring clipped to it, and
the way it’s designed, if somebody slides
his or her bag or coat out, it can catch and
spring the hinge out, disconnecting it
entirely from the fitting,” Spears says.
“Usually the user tells us, and we go fix
the door, or we walk through and see a
door hanging by one hinge that’s still connected. I’d say we’re putting doors back
on 10 to 15 times a day.”
In addition, Spears says, some laminate
locker systems include gaps between
rows of lockers — there to deal with moisture, laminate lockers’ biggest nemesis —
that are just wide enough to allow thieves
to reach through from the top locker and
yank on the partitions, causing the particle board to break. “We had a multitude of
thefts,” he says. “We tried to reinforce
them by putting in a third hinge right in
the middle, hoping it would give them
additional stability. But eventually we had
to go back and retrofit by adding wood
pieces in between all the lockers so people couldn’t reach into the gaps.”
Spears is now considering a switch to
plastic in some Ys, as funds allow. “They
seem to be impervious to vandalism, at
least in the newer Ys where we’ve put
them in the teen locker rooms,” he says.
“Kids cannot destroy them.”
Now if only there could be a system that
kept adults at bay. Even computerization,
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once seen as a technological advance a
step ahead of most thieves, is increasingly
seen as an expensive but iffy proposition.
Lockers in the recreation center at the
University of California at Berkeley
couldn’t be more simple. They’re what
could be called the industry standard —
metal lockers with combination locks that
are provided to users. In an attempt to
streamline the system of checking out
combination locks, the recreation department wrote a computer program similar
to most equipment checkout programs.
Students use their ID cards and community members are issued their own cards,
and only people verified as having paid
their dues are issued locks.
There have been some program
glitches along the way; a recent problem
involved a group of users whose cards for
some reason were not recognized by the
system. Jessica Fisher, director of campus
rec operations and guest services, managed to figure out that there was a common link between all those who were
denied locks (they were all Pell Grant
recipients), but she hasn’t yet been able to
convince the system to give them locks.
“I have a feeling it has to do with the
way that the grants are registered with the
university,” Fisher says. “Initially, these
students are showing up as registered, but
because their fees haven’t actually been
paid, they’re not being found on the “Fees
Paid” list. It shows them as owing the
school money, so they can’t get their lock.
These things pop up from time to time.
Our programmer is working on it.”
By far the most troublesome situation,
though, involved a student or students
who learned to work the system to their
advantage. Over a period of months,
apparently, the perpetrators were issued
locks and, using a Palm Pilot, recorded all
the combinations along with the locks’ serial numbers. After they’d compiled hundreds of serial numbers, they were able to
go through the locker room and open
most any locker at any time, pulling off
scores of thefts without attracting notice.
“It was baffling for awhile,” Fisher says.
To fight the serial-number thieves,
Berkeley instituted a bar-code system.
Placed over the locks’ serial numbers, the
bar codes are printed on tamper-proof
labels that shred if a user attempts to
remove them.
The Berkeley thefts point out a weakness that probably affects hundreds of
recreational facilities. As Alaska-Fairbanks’
Olsen notes, most rec centers have lostand-found boxes into which are thrown a
number of combination locks every
semester. “Usually, I write down all the
serial numbers and take them to Ace Hardware, and Ace sends the list to Master
Lock, and Master Lock sends me the combinations back,” Olsen says. “I can reuse
the locks, which is great, but it just shows
how incredibly easy it is to get someone’s
combination.” ■
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