BUENA PARK : City Tackles Issue of Beach Blvd. Parking

Drivers may be pleased that no-parking signs went up on Beach Boulevard, but now city officials are coping with disgruntled business owners deprived of easy parking.

Some 35 business owners are demanding that the city do something. The city had little choice but to eliminate the spaces, since the California Department of Transportation named Beach Boulevard a “smart street” that would be unimpeded by parking along its sides, officials said at the time.

The latest proposal being floated by city officials would rehabilitate the back lots of some of the businesses, with improved lighting and striped spaces, said Rick Warsinski, assistant director of development services. The department may also recommend making 7th Street one way, so that angled parking spaces could capture more room, he said.

Warsinski told City Council members Monday that there is ample space behind the buildings on the east side of Beach Boulevard between 7th Street and Commonwealth Avenue to create one large parking lot, if owners will all cooperate.

Development officials have had two meetings with business owners since July, but their proposals have been greeted with little enthusiasm.

“Most of them were not in support . . . and felt that parking in front was what would really meet their needs,” Warsinski said. “But we are rather limited in what we can do.”

Dan Mangone, who owns a Frisbee shop called Discovering the World, said that the Beach Boulevard businesses are all doomed.

“They have just made us obsolete,” he said. “You can’t fight city hall on this one, and this is a case where retail [business] is not an option anymore.”

The city plans to have another meeting in about a month with more concrete plans, Warsinski said.