Supermarket Showdown : Shoppers at 2 Stores Are Caught in Middle of a Parking Lot Feud : ‘ It’s like the Hatfields and the McCoys. ‘ Anonymous Ralphs security guard
As the battle of the supermarkets heats up along Ventura Boulevard, the customers have become the pawns, the parking lot the battlefield and private security guards the masters of the game.
Both the Vons and its brand new--and very near--neighbor Ralphs (which opened just last Thursday) are patrolling their adjacent parking lots. If you park at Ralphs, you’d better shop at Ralphs, and vice versa.
If you choose a space on the wrong side of the property line and you’re lucky, you’ll be asked to move; not so lucky and you’ll get a warning ticket; unlucky and you’ll be towed.
One hired security guard at Ralphs said he’d written “a gang” of tickets to Vons shoppers since Saturday.
“That’s all I do.”
As for the parking feud that requires Ralphs black-uniformed men on one side of the lot and Vons blue-clad guards on the other, he rolled his eyes, chuckled and said: “It’s like the Hatfields and the McCoys.”
Although the supermarkets are at the center of the ruckus, according to several merchants in the area, the parking squabble is between the owners of the two adjacent malls, one containing the new Ralphs, the other home to the old Vons.
“All this is because the two (owners) don’t get along,” said Vons guard Michael Moser. “Just put a big brick wall between the stores or something.”
The feuding over the Ralphs project at the intersection of Ventura and Topanga Canyon boulevards goes back at least to last summer, when Stan Weiss, who owns the Vons and the Warner Plaza it is in, protested what he said was Ralphs limited access from the street.
The current dispute has nothing to do with a competitor moving in next door, Weiss said Thursday. It’s simply about parking, about customers from another store taking his customers’ spaces.
Harris Toibb, owner of the Gateway Plaza, home to the new Ralphs--who admitted to “some tension” between him and Weiss--said the guards were there to act as “traffic cops.”
Which is just what they do, said guard Moser.
“I just watch and if they’re walking toward Ralphs, then I tell ‘em . . . they can’t park here,” he said. “They get an attitude and stuff.”
Shopper Nancy Mahdavi didn’t have an attitude, but she didn’t quite follow the signs--”No Vons Parking,” “No Ralphs Parking”--either.
She parked in the Vons lot, and she shopped at Vons. And then, with a few minutes left on her lunch hour, she also ducked into Ralphs.
“I shopped in both,” she said, defending her honor and rightful claim to a Vons parking spot. “The only question is, do I have to push the Ralphs cart clear back over there?”
