Columbia mall officials are using a surveillance system to keep a handle on the holiday shopping scramble.
“We monitor it from a control center here,” said Bill Burley, director of public safety for The Mall at Columbia.
“If one of the [parking] decks fills up, we shut it down so it doesn?t jam up the entire area there.”
The closed-circuit television surveillance system is new this season and allows security officials to watch all parking lots and the inside and outside of the mall, Burley said. The system helps officials anticipate snags so they can remedy them before traffic backs up, he said.
Mall officials don?t have traffic counters that determine the exact number of cars coming in and out of the mall, said Ayana Bargasse, assistant marketing manager for the facility.
But “based on sales, the traffic is up,” she said.
Each year, about 14 million shoppers visit the mall, with 40 percent of them coming in November and December, she said.
Officials have increased security staff hours to 12-hour shifts since Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, which is known for being the busiest shopping day of the year. About eight security patrols work the morning shift and a dozen work the evening, Burley said.
Howard County police also station a patrol car at the mall, and the mall hires an off-duty uniformed county officer on Fridays and Saturdays to respond to any incidents and support the security staff, he said.
Mid-December tends to be a slow time at the mall, with the most shopper traffic expected during the final few days before Christmas, Burley said.
Shopper Terrie Alvarez, of Hyattsville, tried Sunday to completely avoid the mall traffic.
“I came at 7:30 in the morning,” she said.
