Saskatoon business owner wants to see more free downtown parking

Hudsons suffered when the COVID-19 pandemic hit Saskatoon.

“We went from a 110 staff down to 35 staff,” owner Greg Clark said, “so it’s been a noticeable difference.

Provincial health restrictions limit the number of customers businesses can have and the hours restaurants can stay open.

To help, the Saskatoon city council voted to make parking free on Saturdays in the winter, but that ended this past weekend.

Clark is sorry to see it go.

“We definitely started to feel it here the last six weeks or so,” he said.

“We’ve been seeing a constant steady increase in revenue on those Saturday afternoons.”

He told Global News the pub has up to four times more customers than it would have otherwise, and that some customers told him directly that free parking helped.

And though it’s only been a few days since it ended, the director of the downtown business improvement district DTNYXE said he’s heard positive feedback from several owners.

“People felt customers were happy, some pleasantly surprised,” Brent Penner said, speaking over Zoom.

“And, as one business owner said, when customers are happy, that generally is a positive thing and can translate into sales.”

Penner said the organization is looking to gather more information from members in the coming days.

Mayor Charlie Clark proposed the idea when he was running for re-election last year. Although his initial plan extended the program another month, council passed the measure during budget deliberations in December.

City administration told council it would cost approximately $50,000 per month in lost revenue, with the city also missing out on about $40,000 in parking ticket revenue.

That’s around $200,000 in total.

Council dedicated federal funds, given to the city to help with pandemic recovery, to make up for the lost income.

On Monday, the mayor said the goal of the program was “to help remind people, and take away a barrier, to go down and shop safely.”

He said he’s willing to discuss keeping free parking in some form, but after a proper assessment.

“I’m open to having that conversation about the merits of seeing this continue,” he said, speaking over Zoom.

“But we need to have a little bit more of an evaluation and a conversation with all the parties to see what makes the most sense.”

The owner of Hudsons said he appreciates the help, every bit of which counts when restaurants are still struggling.

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