CITY SMART: How to thrive in the urban environment of Southern California. : The Unwelcome Mat : If you have a car, then you need someplace to park it. But that’s easier said than done in parts of L.A.

Call it Parking Hell.

You drive down the street, and all the parking spaces are taken--by luxury cars, to make matters worse.

Turn right and you run into a sign that reads, “Warning. You Are Entering a Permit Parking District” or simply put, no parking anytime (unless you pay big bucks to live there).

Farther up the street, another sign warns: “No turns, 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.”

After 30 minutes of searching for a parking space to carry out a 10-minute chore, you spot one. You slam on the brakes. Everybody behind you honks.

Finally, you maneuver in and discover . . . you have no change for the meter. Surely these merchants can help. Then you spot another sign, on a storefront: “Change for the Meter Is for Customers Only.”

Welcome-- not --to West Hollywood.

But this could be any number of places in Los Angeles County, where cars circle neighborhoods over and over again, like jets above a busy airport, their drivers twisting their necks in search of a parking space.

Just as there never seems to be enough room for cars to keep moving on the freeway, there never seem to be enough parking spaces when all those cars want to stop.

Residents complain about coming home after a hard day’s work to find no place to put their own cars on their own street.

Business people complain that parking restrictions drive away customers.

And just about everybody, sooner or later, complains about being ticketed for staying a few minutes too long at a meter or parking in one of those parking-by-permit districts with the hard-to-see or seemingly contradictory signs.

Parking is in such short supply in West Hollywood that a few hundred people turned out for the recent groundbreaking of the first municipal parking structure in the city.

But the parking wars aren’t limited to West Hollywood. From Pasadena and Century City to Long Beach and Venice, neighborhoods around popular nightspots, the beach, colleges, shopping centers and big office complexes have sought to restrict parking by outsiders.

About the only ones who never seem to complain are the entrepreneurial residents around the Coliseum, who collect a fast few bucks for parking privileges. But elsewhere, parking is about as distasteful as cafe without latte.

“It got to a point where residents could not put their trash barrels out because there was no place to put them,” said Polly Ward, vice president of the Studio City Residents Assn.

Workers from Ventura Boulevard businesses would park their cars on residential streets, blocking driveways, sitting in their cars listening to boom boxes, she said.

Her neighborhood recently joined the 48 preferential parking districts throughout the city of Los Angeles--up from 20 in 1987--that restrict parking by outsiders. Most of the districts are on the Westside.

Parking is toughest in older neighborhoods that were developed when parking requirements were nonexistent or less restrictive.

“Poor planning by the prior City Councils has created a conflict between businesses and residents,” said Richard Close, president of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn.

The problem in West Hollywood may be as bad as it gets. The population of the city more than doubles, to more than 60,000, twice a day--during the morning when office workers arrive and then at night when visitors arrive for the night life.

“It’s terrible,” said Bill Gordean, owner of the Villa Melrose antique store on Melrose Avenue. “People say, ‘We come by your store, and there’s just nowhere to park.’ So they don’t even bother coming in . . . and then I lose business.” There are no parking spaces in front of his store, only a red bus zone.

“My clients drive in circles,” he said. “They’ll just drive around the block until something opens up.”

He said many customers also get tickets for parking on side streets without a permit.

“My father said he’s never coming back to Los Angeles,” Gordean said, noting that his father, an attorney, could not decipher the signs and received a $38 ticket.

“I could buy a new car with the parking tickets I’ve paid this year,” said Jilla Sharif, co-owner of Urth Caffe on Melrose. She has paid nearly $3,000 in parking fines for herself and her employees. They pay $60 apiece for day permits to park on the streets, but are often late moving their cars because they are busy serving customers.

It isn’t very inviting for outsiders coming into a city to contribute to its tax base.

“I was lucky,” said Raymond Hettinger, an accountant from South Pasadena, after finding a parking space on Melrose after five minutes.

“I did explore several streets,” he said. “You see ‘No Left Turn’ signs . . . ‘Don’t Park Here’. . . . The only spots open meter-wise, as soon as you duck in them, you see they’ve been reserved for valets.” Nightspots can obtain permits to use parking spaces at night for valet parking.

Even psychics are stymied.

“It’s very difficult,” said Frank Webb, a psychic reader from the San Fernando Valley who was visiting Melrose on a recent afternoon. “I go round and round and round the blocks. Some of the blocks are hard to get around . . . ‘One Way.’ ‘Don’t Go This Way.’ ‘Don’t Go That Way.’ It’s quite impossible at times.”

West Hollywood’s mayor pro tem, Paul Koretz, said that as a resident, he was pleased by parking restrictions on his street south of the Sunset Strip clubs. “That was the first time in years that I got a night’s sleep that wasn’t interrupted at 2 or 3 in the morning,” he said.

“What drives away a little more business,” he said, “is the fact we’re somewhat predatory in our approach to ticketing.”

Some communities have found ways to reduce the conflict.

Shuttle buses have been used to transport restaurant patrons and shoppers from outlying parking lots into business districts. But they don’t always work.

Several years ago, Los Angeles opened up the parking lot at Fairfax High School on Friday and Saturday nights and ran a shuttle up and down Melrose Boulevard, but it was discontinued after about six months because of lack of ridership.

West Hollywood officials have encouraged day-only businesses to share their off-street parking with nighttime businesses.

For the first time, Los Angeles officials now are also considering requiring a new restaurant to help pay for increased parking enforcement in a preferential parking district.

The good news: You won’t always have to worry about pulling into a parking space and finding yourself with no quarters. Some cities such as West Hollywood are installing new electronic parking meters that not only work with a computer-coded key but also take nickels, dimes and quarters.