Know the Code

I'd been living in L.A. for only a few months in 1996 when the film "Swingers" was released. But I'd already picked up on most of the feature's local observations -- including the importance of which area code you represented.

213? All right. 310? Classy. 818? Forget it.

At the time, I was living in West Hollywood, right at the edge where 310 and 213 met. I laughed when the "Swingers" guys bristled in disgust when a girl gave them her number -- with an 818 prefix. That 818 was an extreme turnoff: The girl was from the Valley -- a whole other world.

But a lot has changed in less than ten years. The 323 area code arrived, just to confuse matters (remember when people would abbreviate phone number area codes with a "2/," "3/" or "8/" back in the day? Didn't work once 323 launched in 1998). We also plenty more regional area codes (626, 562, etc) quickly come.

And cell phones became the great area code equalizer. These days, you can work in the 818, live in the 323, carry a cell phone with a 310 area code and a Blackberry with a 213 prefix. Depending on who you're talking to, you could use any one of those codes to immediately brandish street cred in any area.

Moving to Glendale last year, I wound up with something I'd vowed almost ten years earlier I'd never get: An 818 area code. But you know what? I'm fine with it. (And just in case, my cell phone still reps the 323.)

Meanwhile, things are about to get even more crowded in L.A. area codes: According to the L.A. Times, California is moving closer to adopting an area code overlay for the 310. If it happens, new phone users in the region would be assigned the 424 area code -- and everyone in the 310/424 area would have to dial the area code before the phone number, even if it were a 310 user dialing another 310 number.

Sez the paper: The latest plan has met with concern across the largely upscale zone, which extends from the Palos Verdes Peninsula up the coast to Santa Monica and Malibu, then east through Brentwood, Westwood, Century City and Beverly Hills.

To critics, the 424 overlay would cause confusion, not to mention the inconvenience of dialing 11 digits for every call.

But many also fear that dual area codes would erase part of the region's identity.

"The area code is like your street address; you get attached to it," said Santa Monica resident Steve Chapek, 34, as he worked the counter at California Map & Travel Center. "If they keep adding area codes like that, you won't have any sense of a neighborhood."

Some go to great lengths to get a 310 area code, feeling it provides them a certain cachet even if they don't live within its boundaries.