A LOOK AHEAD * New emergency kiosks at the county’s busiest Latino retail district feature . . .

Only months after installing surveillance cameras along Huntington Park’s thriving shopping district, officials this week are adding emergency call boxes to quash crime fears and retain its title as Los Angeles County’s busiest Latino shopping district.

Together, the cameras and call boxes on the six-block stretch of Pacific Boulevard are believed to be the most intense use of security measures in an outdoor shopping district in Southern California.

“For us to compete with the malls, we have to provide all kinds of services,” said Huntington Park Mayor Rosario Marin.

Business leaders say Pacific Boulevard has surpassed East Los Angeles’ Whittier Boulevard and downtown Los Angeles’ Broadway as the premier shopping destination for Latinos, in part because of fear of crime on Broadway and Whittier Boulevard.

Last year, Huntington Park installed 43 surveillance cameras on Pacific Boulevard and in nearby alleys and parking lots, which police say helped reduce major crimes by 15% citywide. The cameras are monitored by police at a substation on the boulevard.

Now, the city will install in those same areas five emergency call boxes, like those found on freeways, beaches and college campuses. The first is scheduled to be unveiled at a ceremony today and the rest installed by week’s end.

Marin and other city officials have good reason to invest in the boulevard: The 600 merchants on the street generate about $107 million in sales annually, contributing about one-third of all city sales taxes.

Pacific Boulevard hasn’t always enjoyed such prosperity. In the early 1960s, it became a near ghost town when the city’s white, middle-class population began to move to distant suburbs. But the strip started to come to life in the 1970s when the city’s emerging Latino population began to open businesses along the boulevard.

Today, Huntington Park’s half-mile of shopping attracts customers from as far away as the San Fernando Valley and Orange County. Until late into the night, the boulevard bounces with the sounds of mariachi, salsa and hip-hop music blaring from record shops and electronics stores.

The air is flavored with the smell of churros, curry and pupusas from the Mexican, Thai and Salvadoran restaurants that do business along the boulevard. The shops sell everything from cowboy hats to wedding dresses to soccer cleats.

But the competition may be heating up: The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is repaving Broadway in downtown Los Angeles, and Los Angeles redevelopment officials are investing million to revitalize business on that street.

Whittier Boulevard is also undergoing a face lift. Last year, county officials approved new design standards for businesses along the boulevard and began providing $5,000 grants to businesses for facade improvements.

To stay ahead of the competition, Dante D’Eramo, manager of the Huntington Park Chamber of Commerce, said the city must make shoppers feel secure.

“I don’t think you can be overly safe,” he said.

The call boxes are installed in a six-foot column with a blue light at the top that flashes when a caller uses the phone to contact police and paramedics. The phone also can be used without charge to request a taxi or a tow truck and to call a public information line.

The new call boxes, which cost about $9,000 each, will be paid for with city funding and contributions from businesses.

Combined with police bicycle patrols, city officials hope the increased security measures will send the message that the boulevard is as secure for shoppers as nearby malls.

Huntington Park seems to be the first city in Southern California to use the boxes to fight crime in an outdoor business district, according to urban experts.

“It’s a different way to go about dealing with the security issue,” said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp. “From what I can make out, it’s unique.”

Ezunial Burts, president of the Los Angeles area Chamber of Commerce, said he has not heard of other cities using cameras and call boxes for increased security. He said many businesses in shopping districts--such as Santa Monica and Pasadena--have instead formed business districts to pay for private security patrols.

“Even when there is not a high crime rate, people feel better when they have these patrols,” he said.

The city of La Palma in Orange County has approved plans to install three call boxes along La Palma Promenade but has yet to complete the project.

Huntington Park police predict that the boxes will dramatically decrease their response time to crimes on the boulevard and will serve as a strong deterrent to criminals.

“Each one will be like a police officer, standing there 24 hours a day,” said Assistant Police Chief Michael Visser.

But Malcolm Klein, director of USC’s Center for the Study of Crime & Social Control, said the call boxes will simply prompt criminals to move on to nearby communities without such measures.

In fact, Visser said that has already happened.

He said business owners in the neighboring unincorporated community of Walnut Park have reported increased crime since Huntington Park installed the cameras.

“We’ve had really good results really fast,” he said. “The bad guys have moved across the street.”