Council Orders Health Spa to Ease Parking Shortage : Feud: Neighboring businesses and residents claim the club has allowed too many members to join, contributing to a lack of sufficient spaces on the lot.

A feud between the Holiday Spa Health Club and neighboring businesses and residents over a 449-space parking lot erupted this week when more than 500 residents and spa members packed City Hall during a public hearing to consider shutting the club.

The council decided that closing the club was too drastic and instead voted unanimously to force the club to alleviate a severe parking shortage by adding more spaces to the Beverly-Wilcox Shopping Center lot that it shares with about 20 other businesses.

Council members Arnold Alvarez-Glasman and Art Payan rebuked Holiday Spa representatives and the Hofstadter family that owns 60% of the shopping center for failing to resolve the parking issue.

“I’m concerned that the City Council chambers were used to solve a problem which probably should have been solved in the courts,” Payan said. “It is time to remove this from the political arena.”

Angry residents told the council that along with the huge workout center equipped with the latest in fitness technology, the corporation has brought to Montebello an arrogant attitude toward the neighborhood.

Since the club opened in May, 1989, residents and some business people who share the shopping center parking lot with the club have complained that the spa, in search of greater profits, has allowed too many people to join without providing adequate parking. As a result, residents said, Holiday Spa patrons have taken over the parking lot, harming the business of the other shopping center tenants and disrupting life in the neighborhoods around the center.

In addition to restriping the lot to add 82 parking spaces, the council voted to force the spa to reduce noise and congestion in the shopping center neighborhood and repair the asphalt on the lot.

The Hofstadter family, as majority owner, must approve the restriping of the lot. If the family refuses, the council has threatened to eliminate 77 reserved parking spaces used by Hofstadter tenants.

Mark Hofstadter, who said he had hoped the council would force the club to build a parking garage, said he was shocked by the decision: “The council gave us a choice between a slow death by watching our businesses dwindle because there is not enough room to park, even with 82 more spaces, or a quick death by letting the spa take over the lot immediately.”

Holiday Spa representatives, who had already agreed to add parking spaces, praised the council’s action and criticized Councilman William Molinari and some residents for “politicizing” the issue.

“I think we were only here tonight because certain members of this community and one councilman created a political issue,” said Holiday Spa’s attorney, Louis J. Khoury.

The council voted to give the Hofstadter family 30 days to give their written consent to the restriping of the parking lot.