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Valet Double-Parking At Private San Francisco Club The Battery Creates Traffic Aggravation For Drivers

SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) -- Double-parking seems like a way of life for some parts of busy downtown San Francisco. Now a private club near the waterfront is adding to the aggravation of drivers because of its valet parking service.

The valet service is for San Francisco's newest exclusive social club, The Battery.

Dozens of the Bay Area's tech millionaires double park here all the time, handing their keys over to a valet, apparently oblivious to the traffic jam behind them.

KPIX 5 showed video of the street blockage to San Francisco Supervisor Scott Wiener who has been on the city's case about double parking for months.

"It's like the wild west," said Wiener. "They have turned a lane of traffic into their own private parking lot … and there's no one enforcing anything."

That seems to be true at The Battery. Parking enforcement officers issued a total of just 6 double parking tickets on this block of battery street in the last year - 4 of them on the day the club opened.

Paul Rose, spokesman with San Francisco's Municipal Transportation Agency, says his agency has made changes in recent months, including increasing staffing for enforcement.

But even he seemed surprised at what we caught on camera. "Clearly it disrupted Muni service … we have to make sure that those people get to where they need to go as well."

Rose says the San Francisco Police Department issues permits for valet parking, but double-parking is definitely not allowed.

"They have to figure out a business model that works," said Wiener. "You can't just take over a traffic lane."

The Battery would not respond to KPIX 5 inquiries about the double parking issue. The agency that runs the valet service, a company called Minuteman out of Manhattan Beach, said it was looking into the problem.

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