Forget the Safeway parking lot in the Admiral district if you want to buy groceries and then walk across the street to pick up clothes or go to the bank.

Safeway will give you a $35 ticket. If not paid within 15 days, it increases to $60.

Shoppers in the Admiral business district are returning to their cars at the Safeway parking lot to find the parking penalty notices on their windshields.

That's a departure from Safeway's past forgiving attitude about allowing non-customers to use the outer edges of its large parking lot at 2622 California Ave. S.W. For many years, Safeway turned a blind eye to vehicles parked on the fringes of the lot but is now demanding customers only and then only when they are actually shopping.

The grocery store has parking in front, back and on its eastern side. Several signs were recently installed stating the lots are for "Customer parking only while shopping at Safeway." Buying groceries at Safeway and leaving your car parked there while you visit other Admiral businesses is not allowed.

"Our customers get mad if they can't find parking," said Cherie Myers, Safeway spokeswoman.

In late-February, lot monitors from Diamond Parking Services began enforcing the Safeway-customers-only rules. Diamond Parking employees watch from parked cars and are quick to write penalty notices if they see anyone in the lot who is not a Safeway customer.

"We've seen it (the parking lot) being abused so badly," Myers said. "We're taking notice."

She said commuters, who park there early weekday mornings to catch buses in the Admiral district for a ride downtown to work, have used the Safeway parking lot.

The northern edge of the front parking lot was frequently lined with cars belonging to employees and customers of other Admiral businesses. The less-used southern parking lot also informally served the general business district. Customer-only signs are now up in all of Safeway's parking lots.

What Safeway sees as ending the abuse of its property is viewed by some neighboring businesses as a shared business loss. Nearby shops with few parking spaces of their own relied on the Safeway lot, where customers could leave their cars while they dropped off dry cleaning, got a key made or ordered flowers during the same trip in which they went grocery shopping.

Some people think there is a written document stating that Safeway will always allow non-customers to park in its lot.

"It's not a shared parking lot," Myers said. "It never has been."

Safeway has not changed its parking policy, she said. The store is merely freeing up parking spaces for its own customers.

Before enforcement was stepped up, Safeway made numerous announcements about the parking rules over its in-store public-address system, Myers said. Safeway employees also talked it up with customers.

"People who didn't know (about the parking enforcement) weren't shopping at that Safeway," she said.

Tim St. Clair can be contacted at timstc@robinsonnews.com or 932-0300.