Porta Via restaurant on Swarthmore Avenue does not validate parking.
Caruso’s Village Parking Updated
Caruso’s Palisades Village has been the source of many complaints from residents about the lack of parking validation and also the number of Palisades Village employees parking in the street.
Residents, under the umbrella of Protect Our Village, had enacted a signed 2016 agreement with Caruso in which he had agreed that all tenants and employees would park in the underground lot. He also promised two hours free parking. In exchange, residents promised not to protest any of the City hearings about the proposed project.
In the agreement, signed by Caruso, parking is clearly spelled out “Parking validation policies: Two hours free parking will be offered and can be obtained from a tenant or concierge. Movie theater patrons will receive validation for three hours.” The agreement also specified that when the Farmers Market returned that “vendors and guest free parking will be offered from 6 a.m. to 1 p.m.”
With only 30 minutes free parking and validation not at every store, it appears that Caruso had forgotten his promise, so the Pacific Palisades Community Council wrote a letter to Caruso about parking woes.
Caruso, via vice president of development Michael Gazzano, responded on October 9. He assured the residents that tenants had been notified with formal letters and that they would be “formally documenting any tenants that are not complying with their leasehold requirement via default notice.”
In that letter, Gazzano clarified that if a customer spends a combined $250 on property, they receive free valet or self-parking for the entire day.
“Beginning today we are extending our courtesy grace period from 30 minutes to one hour. No validation is required for one hour of free parking.”
The letter went onto explain that no other area parking was as generous, but failed to note that Santa Monica parking structures offer 90 minutes of free parking (and Caruso had initially signed off on two hours).
The Draycott promises to start validating customer’s parking the week of October 22.
After Circling the News heard that two Pacific Palisades Optimist Club members had dined at Porta Via on October 12 and had to pay the full parking fare, CTN visited Hank’s, Porta Via, The Draycott, Blue Ribbon Sushi and Edo Little Bites to ask what kind of validation was offered.
Edo Little Bites and Porta Via do not offer validation. The Draycott said it would start validating next week, and Hank’s and Blue Ribbon Sushi offer 90 minutes.
Edo Little Bites does not validate parking for customers.
You should ask which tenants are are not subsiding their employee’s parking.
Agree with SD above. I, and hopefully others, will not patronize any of the restaurants or stores in Caruso’s Village unless it is documented that they will fully pay for employee parking on site. This is really a slap in the face to the community – namely the residents of the Alphabet streets, and we need to ALL support them. I drove up and down Monument, Embury, Albright, Via de la Paz today. Jammed with cars, and they sure weren’t the locals’ Range Rovers, Teslas, Mercedes. I’ve lived without any of the venues in CV for years, and will be just fine avoiding them until things are straightened out.