For most visitors to Little Tokyo, driving is their mode of transportation. However, in the past year, parking in Little Tokyo has become increasingly difficult for visitors and drivers who are often left feeling frustrated and defeated.
"Parking in Little Tokyo is a hassle," said Michelle Kim, a downtown Los Angeles resident. "Even when street parking is free on Sunday, it still means no parking."
Kim’s comments speak to how popular Little Tokyo’s destination is becoming or rather how competitive it is to find reasonable parking.
Kim had been lucky in finding parking in the Office Depot on Sunday afternoon to grab a cup of coffee from Starbucks. The lot gives free parking validation for the first two hours so she didn’t have to pay.
However, not all of Little Tokyo’s parking spaces offer free parking validation, in fact most don’t.
And it’s the parking vendors fault, according to Brian Kito, the president of the Little Tokyo Public Safety Association.
"Businesses themselves buy the validation tickets from the parking vendors and when they aren’t given the option, they’re stuck," said Kito. "If the customer just wants to pick up a pastry, they’re stuck paying a flat rate just to pay for the small mochi and that scares the customer."
It’s the small, old businesses that are suffering the most because they’re having a harder time bringing back their loyal customers, most of who drive in. As a result of the small businesses being pushed out and developers are getting pushed in.
So why is this happening?
Little Tokyo’s location is in favor of being developed. Developers are pushing to develop existing parking lots into buildings, and as a result the parking spaces will be lost.
"We’ve already lost 150 parking spaces on 1st St. and Central Avenue, it’s not an easy thing to do," said Kito. He acknowledges that some parking vendors are raising the prices of short-term parking, but says that it was pushed. "We don’t want them to make a lot of money on parking, it’s hurting the pockets of business owners."
But customers like Vicki Lee are confused.
On Sunday night, Lee waited in line for the popular ramen restaurant Daikokuya. The restaurant was crowded despite how across the street, the Little Tokyo Mall Public Parking structure was charging people a flat rate of $15, nine dollars more than what was listed on the after hours sign.
"I had driven there and turned back after I realized he was gouging me for my money and got lucky with street parking," explained Lee. "I thought businesses would be hurt by this overcharge, but look around, there’s still plenty of people here."
If losing parking spaces is really hurting businesses, then how come popular ramen restaurant Daikokuya or vintage store PopKiller are still filled with people?
"The truth of the matter is that Little Tokyo itself has a lot of parking," explained Kito, "However, we are surrounded by government agencies that do not have public parking of their own." As a result, the entire block of Temple Street is filled with people on weekdays from the immigration building and the courthouse who are seeking parking in Little Tokyo. However on the weekends, there is an ample amount of parking except for when there are weekend events.
So what can be done to preserve reasonable parking fees?
For now, the community will continue to meet with developers and will require them to include public parking into their agendas. In addition, they will try to instill a flat rate for half-hours that do not rise and that fulfill the needs of the short-term visitor.
What does Kito hope for the future of parking in Little Tokyo?
"It’s important to keep adding parking as it’s erased. Parking is very essential. I’ve seen the bad when we didn’t have parking and I don’t want to see it again."