Michael Linder

Cone-crazy valet commandeers Abbot Kinney Boulevard

It’s Sunday evening in Venice and, as usual, there’s no place to park on Abbot Kinney Boulevard — though there’s lots of empty curb space. Sorry, that’s private parking for Hal’s Bar & Grill. Huh?

United Valet Parking has coned off nearly a block’s worth of parking spots on the east side of Abbot Kinney between California and Andalusia Avenues on behalf of Hal’s, seizing — then selling — un-metered Los Angeles city street. I paced off fifty-five yards in United’s boulevard blockade, enough space to park 11 average American cars.

It’s completely illegal of course, but United has been commandeering the boulevard outside Hal’s for months. When caught in the act of coning the street in December, United’s valet threw karate kicks at me and my camera as I tried to catch him in the act.

Welcome to Hal’s. No photo or I kick you! Hiyyyyyyh-ya! Oh — and try the steak.

The whole story, as heard on TalkRadio 790 KABC…

Playback The Peter Tilden Morning Show: Venice Valet Steals Street
Click arrow to play, right-click icon to download
	iPhone? Tap the orange icon.

“…and we should have three or four valets on duty on weekends,” Hal’s Don Novack told me Monday morning between profuse apologies, pinning the blame on United’s under-staffing.

“We told them to stop,” Novack says of the street-hogging, “but they won’t.” Why not change valets? “We’re under contract,” he shrugs.

So one lonely recessionista valet is left standing at Hal’s podium. Unable to abandon his post to hunt for car stashes in parking-poor Venice, he executes his street-stealing scheme just before dusk, waiting — cone in hand— to claim another spot soon as he eyeballs someone heading for their parked car. A cone here, another there. In an hour or two much of Abbot Kinney Boulevard has been captured. Hal’s personal parking lot. You wanna piece?

What a sweet racket! Hal’s customers park their own vehicles then pay for the privilege of doing so on a slice of free city street. Valet boy simply stands on the sidewalk laying cones and pocketing cash — no longer required to slip behind the wheel of a strange-smelling car and actually park it. Is he really a valet? Or simply a grifter selling the street in a snappy red vest? Literally, a street dealer.

10am Monday morning. I’m in the Culver City offices of United Valet, glancing uneasily at a vested mannequin making odd gestures next to a giant company logo in the firm’s uncomfortably stark reception area. United Valet’s president Kenny Mohammadi Sabet is nowhere to be found. I’m told he’s opening a new location out of town. Where? United refuses to say. Available to speak when? April.

City officials say United is one of several parking operators that owe millions in back taxes to cash-strapped Los Angeles. Maybe that’s why Kenny won’t return my calls.

But Don Novack did.

“United just phoned and told me they’re firing the valet,” Don tells me minutes after I’d left United’s office. Oh, great. To appease a mild case of media outrage, the little guy at the end of the food chain, who probably had nothing to do with his company’s under-staffing, takes the fall. Bad valet!

And what about guys like this Hal’s customer who paid United to park on a street the City of Los Angeles has decreed as free? Has he purchased stolen property? You reading this, Carmen Trutanich? Are we talking possible criminal charges?

The problem is rogue valets who are equally cool with mounting counterfeit valet zone signage on city power poles. This, when they’re not looting your meter change, stuffing your car into a tow-away zone or ripping up a parking ticket you won’t see ’till it’s overripe and bursting with late penalties. FYI, “valet zones” are illegal in Los Angeles. The only city-authorized valet areas lay between those waist-high white passenger loading zone signs poled into the sidewalk. All else is fraud, folks.

Now that rogue tow trucks have been leashed, LA eagerly awaits a new valet parking ordinance commissioned by City Council in December and currently under draft in the City Attorney’s office.

Like Pasadena, Santa Monica and Beverly Hills, LA will soon license valets who must pass criminal background checks and post proof of insurance. They must also prove they have available parking spaces if they want to play valet.

Now for those counterfeit valet zone signs at the restaurant down the street.