ACE Security
Laminates treats windows for safety, UV
block
Christine L.
Romero The
Arizona Republic May 16, 2003
This group of
Valley businessmen loves nothing more than to
take a baseball bat to this piece of treated
glass to prove it won't shatter.
If the
dealers of ACE Security Laminates had a crowbar
or a loaded gun, they would try those just to
prove that nothing could get past the regular
glass, which they have coated with a laminate
that is credit card thin.
The ACE
Security window coating long has been used to
protect the windows of some local police
departments and federal buildings, including the
CIA and FBI.
The 12-year-old privately
held Canadian company began offering it's product
in Arizona less than a year ago through a
handful of independent valley dealers and two in
Tucson. It exports window laminates to more than
40 countries, including China and those in South
America and Africa, where it is widely used on
government buildings.
Christine Keith/The
Arizona Republic Jim
Lowe, a dealer in the East Valley, demonstrates
the shatterproof qualities of window film made
by ACE.
Tempered-glass
windows, like those on most cars, typically will
crumble to the ground or send potentially
harmful shards flying in the air.
"We
work well with alarms," said Jim Lowe, an ACE
Security Laminate dealer in the East Valley, "but alarms
won't stop your stuff from walking out the
door."
Now, ACE Security Laminates is
gaining popularity among businesses that deal
with break-ins, such as liquor stores and small
retailers.
The
product also is catching the attention of Valley
homeowners who live on golf courses, because
golf balls can shatter costly windows. And the
attention of other homeowners, too, as it offers
protection from ultraviolet rays to shield
valuables from the harsh desert sun.
ACE
treatment costs about $100 per
window.
One sunny afternoon, the group
demonstrated the product's attributes by hitting
a test window at least a dozen times with a bat
and then chucking a heavy rock at it. An average
smack to the glass with a baseball bat did
nothing.
Eventually, they got the glass
to start breaking, but the film held it
together, still making it impossible to get past
the barrier.
"Criminals are basically
lazy people," said Larry Walker, an ACE Security
Laminate dealer in central Phoenix. "They don't want to
work that hard."
Makers of high-end cars,
such as BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Lincoln, Lexus and
Cadillac, are taking notice and putting the
theft deterrent on some of their newer
models.
A messy burglary a few years ago
got Andrew Costanzo, co-owner of Tempe's Irish
Gift House, thinking more about security, even
though he already has a window alarm and uses
other security measures. The store installed the
Ace window treatment about a year
ago.
"It's part of our security setup,"
Costanzo said. "It is possible that maybe
somebody has tried to break it and (went on) to
find an easier target."
The laminate's UV
protection has helped save merchandise that
wasn't even in direct sunlight, he
said.
"We didn't want to put anything up
like bars or roll-down steel doors," Costanzo
said. "We want the place to look inviting. We
figured anything else (besides the laminate)
would
distract."
