Commercial Locksmith in San Diego, CA

Business doors in the Gaslamp Quarter

The Gaslamp Quarter Historic District takes up 38 acres of downtown San Diego, bounded by Broadway, Harbor Drive, 4th Avenue and 6th Avenue. More than 90 of its buildings are historic, most from the Victorian era, and many now house restaurants, shops, nightclubs and entertainment venues. A building that old may have street, rear and upstairs doors on different keys, so list every door:

• The street entrance. A storefront may be modern or older, and an original older door may be cut for a mortise lock, so a replacement has to fit the existing cutout.
• Rear and service doors. Deliveries, trash and staff often come and go this way, so these locks see heavy daily use.
• Upstairs space. Offices, storage or separate tenants on upper floors may be reached through their own stair door.
• Inside doors. An office, a stockroom or a bar storage room is often keyed apart from the front.

In a shared building, confirm who controls each door before anything changes; the owner may hold keys to all of it.

Staff turnover and key control

Restaurants, bars and shops hand keys to managers and to opening and closing staff. When one of those people leaves, the questions are which doors their key opened and whether it came back.

• Keep a written list of who holds each key and which doors it opens.
• Rekey the affected cylinders when a key is not returned, rather than hoping it was lost for good.
• A master key system can let an owner open every door while each manager's key opens only the doors that person needs.
• In a leased space, check the lease before changing locks the landlord needs access to.

What to send with a commercial request

• the business and building address, and whether you own the building or lease it
• a list of doors, with a photo of each lock and what the door is for
• how many keys are needed and who will hold them
• times when work would not disrupt customers or service
• who can approve the work if you are not the owner

For staff turnover, see lock rekeying; the commercial locksmith page describes the service.