Why is Everybody Parking on the Larchmont Boulevard Median?

STROLL THE MAIN DRAG of Larchmont Village and you’re almost guaranteed a perplexing sight: On any day, at almost any given time, the center median of Larchmont Boulevard is packed with cars parked in flagrant violation of the California Vehicle Code.

They are literally abandoned in the middle of the road: the workaday Priuses of DoorDash drivers awaiting orders from the boulevard’s restaurants. The camo-wrapped Mercedes of influencer types clutching $9 iced lattes. The sleek Teslas of the moneyed, late-to-pilates-class set. 

Sometimes, drivers leave their hazards on, but most of the time, they run their errands or enjoy sit-down meals after walking away from their cars as though the middle of the street were a parking space. 

“It’s Carmageddon,” said Alex Kaiser, as he slung prosciutto sandwiches from behind the register at Larchmont Village Wine, Spirts & Cheese. “It’s just lawless.”

To be clear, there is no special dispensation of parking rules along Larchmont between First Street and Beverly Boulevard. This daily occurrence is completely illegal. 

The median parkers have confounded residents and business owners for the last several years, as the posh neighborhood retail corridor has become an increasingly popular destination for people from all over the city.

Some gripe about the traffic nightmare median parkers inflict on the narrow boulevard. Others worry that ambulances won’t be able to race up the street in an emergency — particularly after a car smashed through the glass storefront of the luxury skincare brand Aesop earlier this month.

“It’s the height of hubris to say ‘I’m going to park here and it won’t be a problem for anybody else,’” said Steve Kazanjian, a longtime Larchmont resident. “It’s blatantly rude. I think it’s awful.”

There are many theories in the neighborhood about how the practice started, although almost everyone agreed it began roughly around the time the pandemic came to an end. Kazanjian posited that the median parking tradition was started by firefighters patronizing the block, followed by delivery drivers, then DoorDash contractors, then literally anybody visiting Larchmont. 

Among residents, the seemingly perennial problem has raised frustrations about municipal bureaucracy and a perceived lack of enforcement. In a city as large as Los Angeles, which laws are enforced, and which are ignored, and why? In a city whose poorest residents are routinely slapped with erroneous parking tickets, why are wealthy shoppers allowed to park in the middle of a busy roadway with seeming impunity?

“It’s really a problem,” said Sam Uretsky, president of the Larchmont United Neighborhood Association. “Parking enforcement is not clear and present on the boulevard often enough to make it financially onerous enough for people to quit.”

Except, despite what the routine practice of median parking might suggest, it turns out that enforcement has been fairly consistent. Over the last five years, the Department of Transportation has issued citations to median parkers on the busiest stretch of Larchmont Boulevard on 3 of every 5 days, totaling thousands of citations, according to city data. That’s about a quarter-million dollars in fines levied along a single city block.

On two recent visits to Larchmont Boulevard, an L.A. Material reporter witnessed LADOT officers citing multiple cars parked on the median.

“Traffic officers conduct regular patrols seven days a week wherever parking restrictions are in effect,” wrote LADOT spokesperson Colin Sweeney. “Businesses can report illegally parked vehicles by contacting LADOT’s 24/7 Parking Enforcement dispatch line at (818) 374-4823 or (213) 485-4184.”

Rather than a dereliction of duty by LADOT, L.A. Material found that the problem may be that people simply don’t give a shit.

“It's become a nightmare to come here because there’s nowhere to park,” said Ximena Acosta, as she perused racks of high-end clothing at Res Ipsa. “So now you park on the median.”

Acosta said she doesn’t want to park in the parking lots because they’re “always full,” and the side streets are off limits, too, because “there’s like a hundred signs, so then you have no fucking idea and you get a fucking ticket and you can’t fight it because there are a thousand signs.”

(The underground parking lot near Rite Aid was practically empty that afternoon, and the posted parking restrictions on nearby side streets, which typically have ample curb space, are fairly standard for the city.)

When reminded that she was subject to a $63 ticket for parking on the median, Acosta hurried back into the hot afternoon sun to her Black Volvo V60.

Walk into any storefront along the busy boulevard, and you’ll find no quicker way to rile up employees and patrons than to mention the median parkers.

“People know it’s illegal and they do it anyway,” said Romi Cortier, president of the Larchmont Boulevard Association, a local business group. “We don’t endorse it and we don’t support it, but we understand that people want to come to the village and park. It’s a tough balancing act.”

Several factors have conspired to make parking on Larchmont Boulevard a pain.

During the pandemic, restaurants installed outdoor dining decks on the street, which removed roughly a fifth of the boulevard’s parking spaces, Cortier said. Around the same time, the ever-popular farmers market expanded to a second day, bringing even more drivers to the neighborhood. 

Then there is the fact that food delivery services like DoorDash have exploded in popularity, bringing legions of drivers looking for quick in-and-out parking spots.

Nidia West, who works at Alexander Daas Opticians, estimated that she overhears at least one screaming match between median parkers and LADOT officers every six months. 

“I find it kind of entertaining,” said Lani DeSoto, a worker at the nearby Malin + Goetz, where shoppers can purchase cannabis-scented candles for $68. “People get really heated.”

But to hear store clerks tell it, the biggest median parking offenders aren’t the DoorDashers or UPS drivers: They’re the sworn members of the Los Angeles Police Department.

A man behind the counter at Sam’s Bagels, who didn’t want to give his name because he wasn’t allowed to speak to the press, said that sometimes as many as 20 cops per day will shuffle into the store for bagels and coffee — all while parking on the median. A worker at the nearby Noah’s Bagels said their cop regulars favor the Farmhouse Egg Sandwich and Chorizo Avocado Sunrise. (The LAPD’s Wilshire, Hollywood and Olympic stations are all roughly equidistant from Larchmont Village.)

In fact, on a recent Saturday, L.A. Material observed a squad car park on the median and dispense a burly man in an Argentina jersey and matching baby blue sneakers.

The man sauntered into the Kreation juice bar where he bought two juices, according to the store clerk, then loaded into the passenger seat of the squad car next to a uniformed officer who was on his phone.

The pair swung out onto Larchmont Boulevard with their $10 juices in tow, hooked a U-ey in front of Go Greek Yogurt, then sped down toward Third Street before an L.A. Material reporter, sprinting down the sidewalk, could reach them for an interview.

Tomo Chien can be contacted at [email protected] or tomo.213 on Signal.