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Employees were observed parking in the parking areas closest to the side of the building at the Montebello store, while customers primarily used the parking areas closest to the entrance as well as the areas oriented with the entrance, but yet further from the building. At the Pomona store, employees were observed parking mostly in areas of parking that were furthest from the building, while customers parked in the areas closest to the building, extending towards the street. As stated before, this appeared to be a more traditional parking pattern for a large retail store. The lumber yards at each store operated with customers driving in with their vehicles, mostly trucks, and stopping temporarily along the yard to select and load their goods (lumber, planting material, cement, etc.). According to Contractors' Warehouse employees, each lumber yard can average 30 to 50 vehicles per hour driving through and selecting their building material on busy days. Once the material has been loaded, the customer drives to a station where a Contractors' Warehouse employee inspects the material and hands a ticket to the customer. The customer then parks in the lumber yard parking area and goes into the main warehouse to pay for their purchase. At both stores, the lumber yard parking area is striped as angled parking with larger than normal spaces to facilitate easy movements into and out of the area by large vehicles and vehicles with trailers. The limber yard parking demand at the Montebello store often exceeded its capacity of 15 parking spaces. Because there were more vehicles than striped parking spots at times, customers would often park parallel to the walls and behind other vehicles. In addition, as customers were driving out of this area, congestion was apparent at the "check station" because a line of cars were waiting for an employee to check that the items in the vehicle matched their purchase ticket. This situation often created operational and parking delays in the area. In contrast, the lumber yard parking at the Pomona store was larger, providing 32 larger than normal parking spaces. In addition, it was apparent that this area originally provided more parking spaces but that some of the space was being used to store bathtubs, rental equipment, and forklifts. The larger area available for lumber yard parking allowed room for turning movements and other related operations so the area did not exhibit significant congestion. Another unique factor observed at these Contractors' Warehouse parking lots was the activity of day laborers. Both stores attracted day laborers who generally stand around the entrance of the parking lot waiting for possible work from a contractor visiting the store. Some of the day laborers drive to the store and park their cars there, but most carpool or are dropped off at the store by someone else. At the Montebello store, those day laborers who parked there used one of the areas most utilized by Contractors' Warehouse customers, as opposed to using the parking that is farthest from the entrance. In contrast, day laborers parked in the parking area farthest from the entrance along the street at the Pomona store. Additional day laborer activity includes an office trailer that is setup on the edge of the Pomona parking lot that offers assistance to the day laborers. Also, a catering service arrived and parked their truck and food-trailer in the parking lot of the Montebello store, serving food primarily to the day laborers. This catering service apparently operates six days a week from 12:30 PM to 4:30 PM. Finally, stores such as Contractors' Warehouse that cater to contractors and home improvement customers typically experience a certain percentage of vehicles in their parking lot that are towing trailers in order to carry the lumber and other supplies purchased at the store. Surprisingly, no Parking Sturdy of Two Cont1•actom Warehouse Stores - Final Report Page 6 31A-142