Blaze Pizza opening in Lompoc brings fresh pizza and parking concerns

Making your own pizza just got a lot easier in Lompoc, that is of course if you can navigate through the busy parking lot of off H street.

“It’s really difficult trying to navigate in and out – the traffic backs up,” said Lompoc resident Jean Maloy.

And then once you do find a place to park, some customers say it’s hard to leave.

“Trying to back out of here is a problem cause it’s too close to the other cars. It’s just a pain in the butt to come in and around,” said customer Steve Setsodi.

“There’s traffic coming from both ways – it’s very difficult. People are trying to pull out, I’m trying to pull in and a lot of times people don’t want to stop and it becomes pretty chaotic,” said Blaze customer, Alex Cotol.

A city spokesperson said:

The City of Lompoc has had traffic studies conducted for the development at Central Avenue and H Street with the new Blaze Pizza restaurant. These traffic studies found that the current intersection configuration was adequate for the developments that house Panda Express, Chipotle and Blaze Pizza.

Increased traffic around new businesses is expected, and typically decreases in the weeks and months that follow a business opening.

Some residents have their own suggestions on how to fix this problem.

“Maybe put a traffic light and maybe another entrance from the other side. There [are] all these businesses on Central Avenue and there’s no way to get from central to here – you have to come off the main road here,” Cotol said.

“I don’t know if there’s enough room to expand the parking lot. I just think they could’ve found a better spot to put it. I mean it is what it is I guess – but something needs to be done,” said Setsodi.

This parking lot is expected to be even busier Friday as Blaze will be giving out free pizza all day. We reached out to the developers of the pizza shop and are still waiting to hear back.