Parking tickets real bone of contention in downtown Windsor

BY HEATHER KILLEN

The Hants Journal

NovaNewsNow.com

Are parking tickets chasing people away from downtown Windsor?

Reaction seems to be mixed to the practice of enforcing parking restrictions in the downtown business core. While some people are in favour of continuing to enforce the restrictions others think it’s bad for business.

Donna Harvey, who lives outside of town, said she had come to Windsor for a couple of errands. After she found an available parking spot, she checked her vehicle carefully to ensure it was within the lines and not blocking other cars. She was gone only a short time, but when she returned she found she had been given a ticket for parking too close to a crosswalk.

When she tried to talk to the officer about the ticket, he refused to listen to her. Harvey said she feels she didn’t deserve the ticket, but she’s more upset about the way she was treated when she expressed her concerns to the officer. “People come to town for a couple of things and get ticketed,” she said. “You caught me once with a ticket, but you won’t catch me twice. There are other ways of doing business that I don’t need to come to town.”

Frustrated by the reaction she received when she complained to the town, Harvey wrote a letter to the editor that can be seen on page 7, of The Hants Journal.

Doug Ormon, who lives on King St., said he believes the parking restrictions are unfair. He doesn’t understand why the parking rules aren’t consistent all over town. At various times people parked too close to crosswalks on his street and have even blocked his driveway, but he has never seen anyone get a ticket along his street. “I see this on a day-to-day basis,” he said. “Some cars get tickets, others don’t.”

He feels that if drivers are ticketed on Gerrish St for parking too close to crosswalks, they should be ticketed on King St. for the same reason.

Some say it’s bad for business

Business owners have had a mixed reaction to the parking enforcement, with some favouring the practice and others maintaining it’s bad for business.

Willard Wood, of Moe’s Music, said he has been against the practice of handing out tickets since the day it began. He has heard complaints from several of his customers and believes the parking tickets are bad for business. “It’s a type of harassment,” he said. “It’s one thing to give people a warning and bring something to their attention, but this definitely hurts business.”

He added the rigorous parking enforcement in the downtown core started between three and four years ago and has been a contentious issue ever since. It’s different if people are ticketed for leaving their car parked all day or are obstructing pedestrians, but he thinks they should only be written up as a last resort. “One of my customers was in here only 10 minutes to drop off a guitar. When she went back to her car, she found the officer as he was starting to write a ticket,” he said.

The woman told him that she’d be moving the vehicle and there was no need for the ticket, but he gave it her anyway. Wood added that the officer’s attitude about strictly enforcing the parking restrictions can be perceived negatively. “The bylaw enforcement officer is a good guy who’s just doing what he’s told,” he said. “But we don’t want to chase people away.”

Favours enforcement

Pam Kinsman, another business owner, said she’s in favour of enforcing the parking restrictions downtown and sees it as necessary to ensure prime parking spots stay open for customers. But she describes the enforcement as a double-edged sword. “My customers aren’t here for long periods of time,” she said. “I can understand that some business owners would be upset because their customers are spending more time using their service.”

She added that nobody likes to get a ticket and everybody likes to park in convenient spaces, but there is only so much room in a small town. Some people will probably have to park farther away and walk to avoid a ticket.

She said she doesn’t think that parking tickets will discourage people from coming to Windsor any more than they deter people from going to Halifax.

Mayor Paul Beazley said he has heard a few complaints about the matter over the past few months and has been monitoring the situation through the officer’s monthly reports to council.

The officer’s last report noted that about 30 parking tickets were handed out, the mayor said. He added he doesn’t recall the exact numbers given in the officer’s report, but it seems to him that the number of warnings given exceeded the number of tickets.

The idea of hiring a bylaw enforcement officer was brought forward by the downtown business community to discourage people using the prime storefront parking spaces for all day parking and force customers to park on side streets, he said.

Beazley added that the parking problem is no-win situation. If parking restrictions aren’t enforced, the more convenient storefront parking spots will likely be filled quickly by people working in the area and then block the use of the space for customers.

Council will continue to monitor the situation and if it seems the parking enforcement is too rigid or if the majority of people are not in favour of it, council will re-examine the matter, he said.