CHECKING IT TWICE.(The Talk of the Town)

Anyone wondering whether daily life in New York is getting more like passing through airport security (bag checks on the subway, getting "wanded" at the theatre) had only to stop by F.A.O. Schwarz this holiday season to know for sure. An announcement on the store's Web site explained some new rules. For the month of December, Mondays would be called Five-Borough Mondays; from 7:30 to 9 A.M., card-carrying New Yorkers, with valid proof of residency, could have first crack at the freshly laid-out Thomas the Tank Engine sets and the build-a-doll stations. The store's other geopolitical constituents, non-U.S. citizens and U.S. nationals from cities outside New York, would have their own days--International Tuesdays and U.S. Wednesdays, respectively--to shop among their own kind. "We have strict rules," the Web site said. "So don't show up on the wrong day. We hate to turn people away, but we will."

Ed Schmults, F.A.O. Schwarz's C.E.O., said that the plan came to him after a British shopper showed him a page in her guidebook warning visitors to avoid the store during the Christmas season. (On this point, travel guides seem to be in agreement. From the Zagat shopping survey: " 'Don't go over the holidays' 'when it's a zoo' and 'tourists move like snails.' ") Early opening hours would be a good way to thin the crowds, Schmults thought, and segregating the shoppers by place of origin would be "just kind of fun."

On a recent Monday morning, admission was being granted at the store's side entrance on Fifty-eighth Street, where a glass vestibule, manned by one of the store's toy soldiers, served as a passport-control office. "Good morning," the toy soldier/immigration official said. "You look like a New Yorker." He said that he had already denied entry to a French couple. "We informed them that their day is tomorrow. I told them to go get some breakfast." Between seven-thirty and nine, about twenty shoppers made it through the soldier's screening process--"Welcome to F.A.O. Schwarz! Are you from New York?" Then they lined up to present their identification documents to a large security guard with a walkie-talkie. Among those who passed inspection: a Morgan Stanley ...