Rumors spread over the past month that some sneaky cabal was parking cars on the 5700 block of Wilshire, racking up parking tickets but driving food trucks away from the spaces. It’s been difficult to confirm which competing brick-and-mortar or Tom LaBonge disciple might be behind such Karl Rove-style trickery…until now! LAist put a photographer on stakeout who reports catching employees of adjacent Museum Square, home of chain restaurants like Baja Fresh and Marie Callendar’s, on film while parking their personal cars in the spaces. None of the staff would speak on record and Museum Square won’t comment, but unnamed sources are claiming these employees are paid a “rental fee” for the use of their rides and are also being compensated for the accrued traffic fines. So, how are the tenants and truckers reacting?
Apparently, no one is acting too bent out of shape over the escalation, some just feel the building owner and manager is being “silly.” Neighboring offices aren’t picking up their pitchforks and torches over the gridlock or the loss of the mobile caterers either. And though they give their usual gripes about unfair competition from the trucks that stretches back to last summer, the restaurants themselves appear generally surprised by the row. Not surprisingly, the truck operators find the whole situation “funny” and are just shrugging the new guerilla tactic off. After all, they’re not the ones stuck in a Mid-Wilshire Marie Callendar’s at the end of the day.
