Beverly Hills Makes Room for Shoppers : Upscale Town Tries to Downplay Reputation

Tried to park in Beverly Hills lately? From a motorist’s point of view, it’s always had a reputation of being some kind of parking hell: This is the city that earns a full 5% of its annual budget in revenue from parking tickets.

But wait. There are hundreds of new parking spaces downtown this year, and officials suggest that Christmas parkers will have it better.

“It’s getting to the point where we’re providing adequate parking in the downtown area,” said William Stracker, city director of transportation and engineering.

Told to Use ‘Common Sense’

The latest new parking facilities are five double-decker structures opening this month and providing about 410 spaces along Little Santa Monica Boulevard.

And despite the curses of motorists who have overstayed their time, city police said that parking officers have been told that tickets may be voided if the driver comes back before the officer slips the citation under the windshield.

“We encourage officers to use good common sense and play each situation as it is,” said Lt. Jim Smith, commander of the Beverly Hills Police Department’s traffic division. “I don’t think you should be real strict on people. It’s just a parking violation.”

Still, remember that Beverly Hills parking officers this year issued an average of 22,000 citations a month, worth just under $3 million in revenue. And that is less than last year.

Ironically, the drop in the number of parking tickets came as neighboring Los Angeles managed to double the number of parking tickets it handed out between 1985 and 1987.

Access to District

Actually, Beverly Hills is better off because more shoppers can get in and out of the business district, said City Councilman Allan Alexander.

“We do enforce our parking laws and it is a major source of revenue, but the reason for enforcing it is not for revenue generation so much as it is to allow customers to use the parking that is available,” Alexander said.

The city has installed 3,092 new parking spaces in and around downtown since 1980. And since meters are not installed at all 410 slots at the new structures along Santa Monica Boulevard, parking will be free until the meters go in.

With several hundred public parking spaces now in place in the business triangle between Wilshire Boulevard and Santa Monica Boulevard, planners are turning their attention to the parking-poor commercial districts on South Beverly Drive and South Robertson Boulevard.

Always a Shortage

“The bad news is that, yeah, there’s always going to be a shortage of convenient parking, but at least Beverly Hills, I’m proud to say, is addressing it,” said Peter Orgell, a merchant who serves on the city’s Traffic and Parking Commission. “When I go to the Westside Pavilion or the Beverly Center, I don’t find it to be easy parking.”

Others are less cheery. “The biggest problem that most people talk about around here is parking, not the cosmetic amenities of Beverly Hills,” said Chris Davidson, manager of Graffeo Coffee Co., a shop on Beverly Drive. “My feeling is that the only way you can compete with a classy mall is by having as much parking as possible.”