"I don't understand why it's closed," he said. "The DMV makes a lot of money every day."
The only two people working at the office at Fell and Baker streets were security guards. One guard, Suresh Sonpatki, said that on a normal day there are lines out the door. Some of the people who came by not knowing about the closure became angry, Sonpatki said, but most took it in stride.
At the Westminster branch, Andrew Grubbs, 24, found Friday afternoon that he could not register his Mitsubishi Galant.
"I bought the insurance, I got a smog check, this was my last stop," said Grubbs, of Buena Park. "Now it'll have to wait till next week."
And at the office near USC, field representative Lonna Clark-Braxton said Fridays tend to be her office's busiest day.
"We're hoping this furlough doesn't last," Clark-Braxton said. "It's the public that's losing."
At least one business found a way to make the best of the furloughs: Squaw Valley Ski Resort advertised discounted lift tickets to state workers on "Furlough Fridays" -- "until the budget issues are resolved."
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michael.rothfeld@latimes.com
patrick.mcgreevy@latimes.com
joanna.lin@latimes.com
Times staff writers Richard C. Paddock, Paloma Esquivel and Jean Merl contributed to this report.
