Saskatoon city council’s decision to increase parking ticket penalties from $20 to $30 is being met with disappointment from some business owners.
Brian Storey, co-owner of Drift Sidewalk Café & Vista Lounge in Riversdale, said he wants to see parking turnover outside his business.
“But as far as it being an actual revenue stream, I think they should be happy if nobody gets tickets,” Storey said.
“When somebody comes in from out of town, it’s really a shame to give them a $30 ticket if they maybe don’t know the system.”
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On Monday, city council voted 6-5 in favour of the 50 per cent hike to generate an estimated $750,000 in revenue.
The fine increase was one of a series of measures to fill a $9 million shortfall caused by the provincial government’s cuts to grants-in-lieu funding for SaskPower and SaskEnergy, along with the one per cent increase in the provincial sales tax.
The heads of the Riversdale Business Improvement District and the Downtown Saskatoon Business Improvement District (BID), presented to council Monday, opposing the fine increase.
“We want and need people to pay for parking,” said Brent Penner, executive director of the Downtown Saskatoon BID.
He would prefer the city try to increase revenue by implementing parts of a parking strategy released last year, which called for as many as 1300 new public parking spaces in the city’s core and south core.
The report also recommended up to 1900 spaces in three or more new parkades.
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Ward 9 Coun. Bev Dubois voted in favour of the fine increase, citing the city’s new smartphone parking app and up to three-hour limits for paid parking in some areas.
Those measures should limit the number of people penalized moments before plugging the meter a second time, she said.
“For the time being, with what we’ve got on the table for residents and businesses, I think that it’s as fair as we can be right now,” Dubois said.
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