Vernon city councillor suggests softening up parking rules
VERNON – A Vernon city councillor hopes to make the downtown core a more inviting place by giving shoppers a grace period at the parking meter.
Coun. Brian Quiring led a motion to have city staff investigate the possibility of establishing a five minute grace period at expired meters.
“I think you should be able to run in and take two seconds to get a loonie to plug your meter and not worry about getting a ticket in that span of time,” Quiring said.
Bylaw currently provides a three minute grace period—but only for recently plugged meters. Currently, if an individual ran into a store to get some change without plugging the meter at all, there’s no grace period.
Quiring’s motion was prompted by an email from a disgruntled shopper who ran in to get some change and returned to find a $25 parking ticket.
“I think it’s a pretty common situation,” Quiring said. “Downtown is struggling right now and when you get an email with a disgruntled shopper that says they’re going to go back to where there’s free parking and lots of stores… that to me says we better fix what we have and quick.”
He said the grace period could be as simple as having bylaw officers walk down the street, conducting other checks, before returning a few minutes later.
“It’s all about trying to be more customer friendly,” Quiring said.
Staff will look into the idea and bring its findings back to council for further consideration.
To contact the reporter for this story, email Charlotte Helston at chelston@infonews.ca or call 250-309-5230. To contact the editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.
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2 responses
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Why do they need to charge for parking anyway?Can’t they generate revenue another way?We don’t have parking meters in Armstrong.They are a nuisance.
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what about workers who have min. wage that work downtown?The parkaide is full and who can afford it too?The only place to park is in front of peoples homes.The grass out front of these homes are being wrecked. Then, the city turns that street into into a 2 hour parking only.Yes, turn the parking back into what it was before.As a shopper, I will not go downtown to shop.I can not afford a $25.00 ticket.Before yes, if I was late, I can do the $5.00 ticket.As a worker downtown, I could do the ticket and move my car.Many times I was 2 minutes late.But $25.00 that is insane!Also, these parking meters do not work correct.One will give you 4 hours with the same change, the one next to it will give you 10 minutes.My co-worker always grabbed the one that gave him 4 hours, and I would park next to him and put the same money in and get minutes.It was a good chuckle.Were I work it is free parking for customers, so many park in our parking lot to shop downtown.We have never towed anyone yet, because we know about the $25.00 fine.We know that they can not afford it because we see the car and the people who come out of the car.Not to judge people, but damn come on, city get it together.Also, we getpeople asking us if they can park so they can go downtown to shop only because they can not to shop in our city for 1 hour!
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