Parking fine hike a death knell for downtown, say businesses
By Delon Shurtz - Lethbridge Herald on February 9, 2023.
LETHBRIDGE HERALDdshurtz@lethbridgeherald.com After years of struggling to survive but still managing to keep their heads above water, downtown businesses fear they may be hearing the death knell in the face of increased parking fines.City council is considering amending a traffic bylaw that would increase parking fines to $50 from $25, minus the $15 reduction if paid within seven days. But businesses say that could be the final nail in the coffin for many of them.
Lisa Tompkins of Tompkins Jewellers says downtown merchants are legitimately upset, and while their reasons for opposing any increase in parking fines vary, they are unanimously concerned that their businesses with suffer, particularly those in which customers need to spend a considerable amount of time.
“We are unified in the fact that it is too high, too fast, and it will kill the downtown,” Tompkins says.
The City believes increasing the fines will increase compliance and add revenue to the coffers, but Tompkins says compliance isn’t an issue for her on 7 Street, while it may an issue for businesses on other streets.
She uses a book store on 6 Street as an example, and says customers need time to peruse the store before buying a book, and may spend more time in the store than planned. If they end up getting a $50 ticket, they are likely to shop at a book store three blocks away where parking isn’t an issue.
“It is kind of a defining moment, I think, for downtown.”
Some shoppers are already proving Tompkins’ prediction to be accurate. While city councillors try to decide whether to increase parking fines, some shoppers have already made up their minds what they will do if council votes in favour of the increase.
One shopper told Dave Clark of Doug’s Sports that he will simply stop shopping downtown.
Clark said the customer, who lives in the County of Lethbridge and has been shopping at the store with his children for 10 years, recently said he will have no option but to stop shopping at his store.
“He says, ‘I will not be shopping at your store anymore if that parking rate goes in. I can’t afford the chance of paying that much money to buy sporting goods.'”
Clark is convinced he will lose many customers if the parking fine is increased, and that just adds to the hit downtown merchants took during the pandemic.
“We’re still trying to claw back from COVID.”
Clark admits even his wife stopped getting her hair done downtown, because she had to be in the salon for a lengthy period of time, which always resulted in a parking ticket.
“To me, if this goes through, it’s just another nail in our coffin.”
Clark estimates he paid the fines for 10 to 20 customers last year because he is embarrassed the city penalizes them for shopping downtown. Now he fears he’s simply going to lose customers.
“I put myself in the place of the customer coming to my store, and if I knew I was buying a $25 pair of batting gloves, but I had the chance of getting a penalty of $35 or $50, I wouldn’t stop at my store.”
City council has delayed a decision on raising the penalties for parking fines in the city, and on Monday referred the matter to next Wednesday’s Economic Standing Policy Committee so the public can provide input.
According to a report submitted to council by the traffic engineering and planning department, lower parking fines have little impact on infractions, while increasing them will result in increased compliance and in parking revenue, without the City having to implement a parking rate increase.
Tompkins has a letter, signed by downtown businesses and accompanied by business cards, she plans to present to the mayor to show how much opposition there is to the fine increase. She also has a petition in her store for shoppers to sign. She notes, ironically, that a married couple came into to her store last week and signed the petition, and when they returned to their vehicle they found a ticket on the windshield.
Hunter Heggie, owner of the King of Trade on 5 Street, says businesses were blindsided by the proposed fine increase and were not given an opportunity to provide any input. He says the City has over the years spent millions of dollars revitalizing the downtown, only to now introduce a large increase in parking fines which will have the opposite effect.
Hunter also believes the city knows it made a mistake when it bought and installed the costly new parking meters, but it refuses to admit the mistake or rectify it and appears to be forging ahead with the ill-conceived fine increase.
“In for a penny, in for a pound,” Hunter says, quoting the well-known phrase
Hunter suggests the city could offer free parking for a set amount of time, and only fine people who abuse that system. He would also like to have a meeting with residents and merchants to see if they can come up with ideas to address parking in the downtown.
“That should have been done before all of this.” Follow @DShurtzHerald on Twitter 4
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