CHANNEL ISLANDS HARBOR : Beach Area Parking Rules Are Criticized

A parking ban on narrow streets in the Channel Islands Harbor area has improved access, but some residents complained at a hearing this week that parking is now more difficult.

Most residents have complied with the ban, with fewer than 20 violations issued since the measure went into effect Jan. 6, Sheriff’s Deputy Dwayne Heath said Tuesday at a meeting of the Channel Islands Beach Community Service District.

But the ban on parking on streets less than 20 feet wide drew criticism from some residents of Silver Strand and Hollywood Beach, who told district directors that they were forced to park more than a block from their homes.

“I think we’ve overreacted and taken things too far,” said Jay Mullen, a Silver Strand resident who warned that summer traffic would worsen a longstanding parking shortage.

Another resident, Earl Burrows, said that neighbors who had approved of the ban would have preferred to see one-way streets with limited parking, but that the option had not been submitted to residents.

Several other residents asked the district to secure more parking at nearby county parks.

But other residents supported the measure, which is intended to guarantee access to emergency vehicles on narrow streets in the tract that was subdivided in the 1920s.

Fred Wendland said he supported the ban after firefighters were prevented from reaching a residential fire on Ventura Avenue and had to drag a fire hose past parked cars to fight the blaze.

Director James A. Antonioli, who heads the district’s parking committee, said the ban had improved public safety in the district.

“We have done everything we can to protect this community from fire and its elderly residents from illnesses,” Antonioli said.

In the end, the board agreed to refer the complaints to its parking committee for further study.