West Hollywood Gate Codes Keep Showing Up. So Does Edd Holman

Edd Holman was back at a city podium Monday night. Same issue, four months later.

The West Hollywood resident, Neighborhood Watch Block Co-Captain, and newly appointed member of the City’s Older Adults Advisory Board told the Public Safety Commission he’s still finding building entry and garage access codes written on walls and entry panels across the city. “Other than one tweet, it feels like this breach isn’t being taken seriously,” he said. “Could a flyer be made and mailed out to the citizens?” He had just received a City flyer about the upcoming CicLAvia event. He wanted to know why the gate code breach hadn’t gotten the same treatment.  

Within 24 hours, the City re-sent a Community Safety Alert to neighborhood watch captains and resident association leaders — the same alert, it turns out, that the City had first sent in March.

How it started

Holman first raised the alarm in February after filming a man in an Athens Services vest standing at a building garage gate, clicker in hand, with an Athens truck parked in the street behind him. “I took him to be an Athens employee from the moment I laid eyes on him,” Holman said. He documented 15 separate instances on a single street — codes in pen and permanent marker on call boxes, gate frames, welcome signs, key boxes, and utility pipes. The codes work with standard dip-switch clickers.

He called Anita Shandi in the City’s Public Safety Division. He called Helen Collins, the City’s Director of Public Works. He called Athens. Then he sent in a Dear WeHo letter to WEHOonline hoping to alert residents and get City Hall’s attention — it worked.

Athens denied its employees wrote the codes, suggesting a delivery service might be responsible. Holman pushed back in his letter. “I’m not aware of any delivery service that enters through the garage,” he wrote. “They usually access the property through the building’s entrance.”

Holman told the council that wasn’t enough. “Athens claims that writing access codes on the property is not part of their company policy,” he said, “but these codes are appearing exactly where their teams need access.”

Mayor Heilman stopped short of assigning blame. “It’s possible that it was an Athens employee,” he said. “We can’t prove who did it, but somebody, apparently, has written codes for getting into some of the gates in our city.”

The sheriff’s response

Holman also asked whether field deputies have been briefed on the codes and whether investigators check for them when responding to break-ins. “I encountered a sheriff on my street recently and asked him, showed him a photo of a gate code and asked him if he knew what it was. He did not.”Since he could not direct questions to the sheriff from the public podium, he asked commissioners to ask on his behalf.

Vice Chair Brandon Blau asked if West Hollywood Sheriff’s Station Lt. Ashley Turner could respond to Holman’s questions about whether deputies are aware of the issue.

Turner said deputies have been briefed on the gate codes. She said she would follow up with the Detective Bureau to make sure that when deputies respond to break-ins, they are checking for gate codes on the property and documenting findings in their reports.

The March alert — and the gap

The Community Safety Alert the City re-sent Tuesday was originally distributed March 2, 2026 — roughly two weeks after Holman took the issue to City Council. Four months later, Holman was still at a public podium saying the outreach felt like it was limited to a single tweet.

Public Safety Manager Anita Shandi’s June 23 re-send asked recipients to again share the message with all their neighborhood contacts. The email says no individual or company has been identified as responsible for the markings and that no criminal activity related to unlawful entry via gate codes has been reported. The City asked residents, property managers, and building owners to inspect their properties: entry panels, surrounding walls, gates, and common areas for any written codes and remove them. They suggest changing and reprogramming access and garage codes as soon as possible.

The City also recommended rotating codes as a preventative measure and reminded property managers to tell residents not to share their entry codes with anyone they don’t personally know.

If you see anything that looks off, unusual, or suspicious, or have any reason to think someone has tampered with entry systems, contact the West Hollywood Sheriff’s Station at (310) 855-8850. If you notice any numbers or other markings near your entry gate code boxes, take a picture and send it to your property manager and the City’s Public Safety Division at Safety@Weho.org.

The mystery of who wrote the gate codes remains unsolved. But thanks to residents like Edd Holman, who refused to let it drop, the City is paying attention. If you see something in your building that doesn’t look right — a number scrawled near a gate box, a marking on a call panel — say something. It takes thirty seconds and it might make all the difference.