Banks Without "Bandit Barriers" Fight to Keep Casual Vibe

My bank just closes before most robbers are awake.

It's like Post Offices up in the country; no bulletproof glass, no drawer for packages. In the city there is just more risk for crime.

Do you have a vague idea why that is so?

Doesn't it all come down to percentages? If 80% of the banks in New York have barriers and account for 47% of the robberies and 20% of the banks have no barriers and account for 53% of the robberies, then there is a very serious correlation to those with and without barriers.

Who was that that made a comment of postal workers being friendly to customers in wealthy neighborhoods? Are you kidding me? The USPS has a special school to train their NYC workers. And it ain't Miss Manners School for the gifted.

What's to keep bank robbers from threatening harm to hostages who aren't protected by the barriers? You know, the bank employees up front and the other customers. Or don't we matter? As long as the money is safe, what's a few dead hostages, right?

what about post offices

in richer areas they are nice and welcoming and open (a lot of the times)

in poorer areas they are set up like a prison with super thick bandit barriers..

you would think the post office would know better than anyone about protecting their own from robberies or gun violence :O

who is stupid enough to rob a post office? its a government building lol

anyways as for the article, seeing TD is a canadian corporation now you can sort of understand why there is no protective glass. banks in canada get hardly robbed anyways.

the real question is how do we protect banks from the white collar hoodlums that run them?

That stat isn't meaningful. It's basically 50/50, but what is not mentioned is how many branches have barriers.

For example: What if there is only one branch in the city without barriers, but it's still 50/50 for robberies happening with/without barriers. Now you can see that not having a barrier is risky.

These statistics never mean anything because they don't answer all the questions. The study should also mention where the robberies took place. Are the banks in normally high crime areas? Are the robberies in areas where there are fewer people or less police presence? Are the banks in areas where a car would be close by as opposed to a robber that has to run and jump on the subway? There could be more reasons than just the barriers.

in brasil, all the banks have revolving bullet proof glass doors that work off a metal detector. if you have a thick enough belt buckle the door freezes and you can't come into the bank. much like the airport, you put any large metal objects through a glass bin where there are checked by two heavily armed guards inside. i bet brasil has zero bank robberies. why can't we do that here?? and why can brasil be energy independent running 80% of their cars on sugar cane and the we can't? wtf.

It helps a lot to be in a climate where you can really grow sugar. Brazil produces about 20 times more sugar than the US.

We could buy sugar from Brazil to refine into ethanol but our protectionism and lobbyists prevent it. We pay more for sugar than anywhere else in the world.

That is true. One thing I forgot is that there are also sugar beets which can be used for ethanol.

It's also a country where entire territories are run by drug cartels. Why can't we have that?

Who goes to banks anymore???

I think I was in a bank about a year ago.

citibank has those big glass barriers, and every transaction is way faster there than TDbank. personally, i like it better. the tellers can be friendly, but they aren't my friends (and more importantly, not the friends of those annoying chatty people that would hold up the line). without the imposing glass, you get idiots like the one quoted in the times taking their sweet old time.

"With that glass, you feel like you';re in a government office, where the lady just talks to you through the little window."

Eddie Murphy portrayed this brilliantly in the cartoon tv series The PJs. Whenever the characters went to HUD, all you ever ever saw was a shadow and a nasty voice.

The PJ's! I used to love that show!

In this economic climate where banks are struggling to stay afloat, it's very important that we pass laws that require additional construction that cuts into their bottom line.

Especially since the robbery numbers are only 47-53%. That's not a large enough statistical gap to claim the need for barriers.

It's not the government's job to run the business and determine the operating environment. Robbery is the bank's problem to deal with as they see fit.

Not when it supposedly affects public safety in NYC it isnt......

Banks don't belong to the public (unless you're at Citi).