![\"Mad](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784865369_373_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nBAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) \u2014 Several downtown Bakersfield businesses say a city construction project is driving away customers and creating major parking problems.<\/p>\n
Downtown Bakersfield businesses say construction hurts business, parking<\/p>\n
Mad Dog Tattoo, M.A. Griffin and Sons, The Mint Bar, and Burger Hut are among the businesses affected. Business owners say crews converted a parking lot next to Mad Dog Tattoo into a staging area to store equipment and materials. Workers are also parking their personal vehicles in front of shops, owners say.<\/p>\n
In a letter shared with 23ABC, Marc DeLeon, a manager at Mad Dog Tattoo, and other shop owners say foot traffic is down 80%.<\/p>\n
DeLeon said:<\/p>\n
“There are people here who depend on customers to be able to feed their families, and you are taking the ability from the customers to get to the businesses.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
23ABC Courtesy Mad Dog Tattoo<\/p>\n
Business owners want the city to move the staging area to an empty lot down the street.<\/p>\n
Starting next Wednesday, crews will block off parking on both sides of the street. Shop owners say they will keep their doors open.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Bakersfield Public Information Officer Joe Conroy told 23ABC that the project remains on track to be completed by late October.<\/p>\n
23ABC is reaching out to the city about businesses’ concerns regarding the staging area and worker parking. This story will be updated when the city responds.<\/p>\n
Stay in Touch with Us Anytime, Anywhere:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) \u2014 Several downtown Bakersfield businesses say a city construction project is driving away customers and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410359,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,164347,133804,155,164348,153,152,164349,164350,164352,102870,164351],"class_list":["post-410358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-city-project","tag-bakersfield-construction","tag-bakersfield-downtown","tag-bakersfield-foot-traffic","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news","tag-bakersfield-parking","tag-christopher-deleon","tag-downtown-bakersfield-businesses","tag-joe-conroy","tag-mad-dog-tattoo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}