Police Ticketing Valet Parking Violators
Walking to The Gelateria tonight I noticed police ticketing vehicles parked on the public street where valet parking signs were posted. This was on the northside of the 1200 block of Washington Avenue, across from places like Wasabi and Lucas Park Grille.
The time was 7:45pm. Of the 17 total spaces eight were empty, coned off to us regular folks. The remaining nine spaces were occupied with four of those having just been ticketed. Keep in mind no evening businesses operate on this side of the street.
If you’ve read my prior posts on this issue you know my view: a business should get two spaces in front of their door for the valet with all cars getting parked on private lots elsewhere. This leaves public spaces to the general public. This is only fair to those businesses that don’t operate valet service.
The city has no ordinance regulating valet parking. It is even questionable if the Street Department has the authority to issue the valet permits they have issued. The Treasury Dept, responsible for parking meters in the city, has indicated they have no policy.
I was tempted to park in one of those eight vacant spaces just so I’d get a ticket. It would give me a good opportunity to challenge the validity of the whole valet thing in court.
But the bigger issue is one of perception. Downtown St. Louis is hoppin’ tonight yet eight public spaces sit empty except for some orange cones. How will people visiting St. Louis from other cities or just from the ‘burbs take the idea of empty spaces but they can’t park there. I think they’ll find it frustrating and it will only compound pre-conceived ideas of downtown parking issues. We are killing ourselves here.
Copia, in the next block east, has wised up a bit. Rather than leave their entire block completely empty, as they have been doing, it looks like they’ve started parking their customer’s cars on the block. Looks much better but I’d still rather see the general downtown visitor get a fair shot at these spaces.
To the “leaders” downtown — I’m not going to drop this topic until it is resolved. Better get busy and earn those big salaries.
– Steve
Keep it up Steve! I can’t tell you how excited I am for the day that the ball drops on these valet situations, and people are held accountable for denying visitors to the street (not to mention visitors to the city!).
I’m extremely interested in how this will turn out!
Take care,
Washington Worker
I am surprised that there is no valet parking city ordinance, since there are ordinances for the most trivial offenses. The 3.2 percent liquor licenses and the spitting ordinances come to my mind. Who sells 3.2 percent anymore? Maybe something will be done, since this may not have been an issue in the past due to the lack of downtown activity?
“If you’ve read my prior posts on this issue you know my view: a business should get two spaces in front of their door for the valet with all cars getting parked on private lots elsewhere. This leaves public spaces to the general public. This is only fair to those businesses that don’t operate valet service.”
I was at the Chase Park Plaza last night, and they were having an event; took my girlfriend to see Capote, which was very good BTW. They took, from what I can say would have been 8-10 car lengths of Lindell Avenue for patrons to pull up, and leave their cars. I thought it was like a runway that belonged at Lambert Airport. Honestly, seeing a large section of Lindell being coned off for Valet Parking was really not classy, it seemed very cheesy, and if there was a bit of more traffic, possibly dangerous, or at least a pain in the ass. There was an event in one of the ChaseÂ’s ball rooms, and I wonder why they did not use the front entrance, since this would not block traffic.
Denver struggled with this over the past decade, as LoDo became a desirable place for restaurants and lofts, much like Washington and the surronding areas are now becoming.
Here are a few links to their solutions:
http://www.denvergov.org/admin/template3/forms/Valet%20Parking%20Services%20090303.pdf
http://www.denvergov.org/Parking_Management/template311681.asp
http://www.downtowndenver.com/transportation/access_parking.htm
Basically, I agree that no business should have special or exclusive access to on-street parking spaces, especially when there are no rules governing if or how permits are to be issued!
geesh what a bunch of whiners. pony up the 6 bucks and have the valet park it.