If you want to catch a weekend show in North Hollywood's thriving theater district, better be prepared to step out of the performance once or twice -- the city of Los Angeles wants you to move your car.
With hundreds of vehicles flooding the square-mile area for events at the district's 22 theaters, not to mention up-and-coming restaurants and art houses, the parking situation is already dire.
There are few public lots. Signs in a nearby Metro station warn "Parking for Transit Patrons Only." And there are so few street spaces to accommodate visitors, actors and production staff that some theater owners already hire valets. Now owners are worried that a recent move by the city to increase meter operating hours will make the situation worse.
The new requirements are part of sweeping parking meter reforms being instituted across L.A. Designed to raise revenue, replace outdated equipment and encourage drivers to use city lots, the changes require motorists in popular entertainment centers to pay $1 an hour until midnight on Friday and Saturday and from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Sundays. And you can't just feed the meter when your time expires; you must move the car to another space.
"How the hell can anybody do a show?" said Linda Fulton, who owns the Avery Schreiber Theatre with her husband, Richard. "The city invested millions of dollars in this area. It's like now the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing."
Currently, meters along bustling Magnolia and Lankershim boulevards, the majority of which offer drivers only an hour of time, require deposits between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. This leaves nights free for theater patrons, who can leisurely attend dinner and a show without worrying about whether they're going to get a ticket that would cost them up to $45.
Recently, city workers started switching the meters to the new hours that extend to midnight. Signs posted on light poles above the meters, however, carry the old hours, and that has led to even more confusion.
Theater owners like Fulton are demanding that the City Council at least convert the meters so patrons can pay for four hours at a time to avoid having to rush out and back in midperformance.
North Hollywood business leaders weren't the only ones taken by surprise by the changes. City Councilman Tom LaBonge, who represents the area -- which has more theaters per capita than any city outside New York -- said longer meter hours might harm neighborhoods surrounding commercial centers with limited street parking.
