Santa Monica's Shot Against ATM Surcharges Sparks Regional Offensive

By Jorge Casuso

The shot the City Council fired earlier this month in the battle against ATM surcharges has been heard, if not 'round the world, at least across Southern California and, who knows, maybe all the way to Washington, D.C.

It's not likely that the Pentagon's proposal to ban surcharges on its military bases was triggered by the Santa Monica vote Oct. 5, but the Los Angeles City Council quickly followed the seaside city's lead.

So have San Diego City and San Diego County, where supervisors on Tuesday directed staff to draft legislation similar to Santa Monica's, which prohibits banks from charging non-customers for using their Automated Teller Machines, or ATMs.

"Those (measures) were sparked by Santa Monica," said Janine Benner, a consumer advocate for the California Public Interest Group (CALPIRG), which is lobbying for similar bans across the state. "Santa Monica opened the floodgates."

Other California cities - such as Berkeley and Santa Cruz - have contemplated banning ATM surcharges, but they took a wait-and-see attitude. It took Santa Monica's highly publicized vote to get others to join the fray.

The day after Santa Monica' vote was captured by the news cameras, the Los Angeles City Council directed staff to draft a ban on ATM surcharges for the neighboring metropolis to the east. The council could vote on the measure in a couple of weeks.

"Councilman Alex Padilla saw what the city of Santa Monica did," said David Gershwin, the communications deputy for Padilla, who pushed for a ban. "I think that Santa Monica did take it to the next level. Santa Monica's was the first ban that was taken seriously."

The ban, Gershwin said, would be welcome in LA. "I think that regardless of where you live, ATM fees are a concern."

San Diego County also has directed staff to draft an ordinance banning ATM surcharges, and San Diego Deputy Mayor Byron Wear is pushing for a similar measure in his city.

"It's not very far along," said CALPIRG's Benner, "but it's definitely being thought about."

San Francisco voters will decide a similar measure on the Nov. 2 ballot.

But the loudest shot fired against the banking industry was the Pentagon's proposed ban, which could affect dozens of banks that operate ATM machines in more than 400 major domestic military bases, 62 of then in California. The ban on the fees - which range from $1 to $3 - could affect about 1.4 million military personnel.

Advocates of the ban predict that the banking industry will find itself hard-pressed to oppose the Pentagon's proposal, which will likely legitimize the anti-surcharge movement among conservatives.

"Some people before today had the tendency to say, 'Santa Monica is very liberal, so of course they're going to do something like this,'" said Benner, who spearheads CALPIRG's effort to ban ATM surcharges in Southern California. "But the Pentagon is very conservative. This shows there is broad-based support."

"The People's Republic of Santa Monica and the U.S. military are side by side, shoulder to shoulder," joked Councilman Kevin McKeown, one of the sponsors of the local ban.