Paying to park in Downtown Paso Robles was the topic of a public hearing on Tuesday night.
The Paso Robles City Council hosted a 90-day review of the new downtown paid parking program which gave the public another opportunity to weigh in.
The future of paying to park in Downtown Paso Robles was up for debate at the Paso Robles City Council meeting on Tuesday.
“Our survey showed that 82.3 percent believe that the parking program has had a negative impact on them individually and/or as a business,” said Bill Saylor with the Paso Robles Main Street Association.
“Parking is not only an inconvenience; it’s become a driving factor in turning business away. Our sales are down 20 plus percent Monday through Thursday, the time when we rely on our locals for business,” said Business Owner Corey Jordan.
“Weekday foot traffic is and has been significantly down due to the current parking program. Locals are taking their business elsewhere out of downtown, and this is detrimental to all of our business,” added Katelyn Smith with Amsterdm Coffee House.
“This is a town of 32,000 people. It’s rural. we are not San Luis Obispo. we are not Santa Barbara. We are not Pasadena,” said Park Cinemas Owner John Roush.
The pilot program gives two free hours of parking and every hour after that costs $2.
There are kiosks located throughout the downtown area to enter your license plate number and pay to park.
some business owners are concerned that paid parking will drive away people who live in Paso Robles and hurt small businesses.
“When they lose their customers and lose their profits, they’re gonna be gone and then what’s gonna happen? All of a sudden, we don’t have a unique downtown with lots of things to do,” said Roush, who fears that paying two dollars an hour to park will drive movie-goers elsewhere.
“Who’s gonna pay that? They don’t have to. They can go to Galaxy Theatre in Atascadero. They can stay at home and watch movies on TV,” said Roush. “People say $2 an hour is not expensive. I disagree. Any money you have to spend that you shouldn’t have to spend—the reality is that’s money out of your pocket.”
The Paso Robles Police Department is giving a warning to first-time violators and is taking an education-based approach.
“So, we’re really trying to explain how the process works. Those are some of the complaints in the past is that it was confusing, and people didn’t understand it. So, we’re doing our best to get out there and educate,” said Police Chief Damian Nord, who tells KSBY that the department has given out around 670 tickets, and 32 hundred warnings over the past three months.
“We’re not trying to create a revenue stream but in order to get compliance for the turnover, we have to enforce it which, in turn, there’s tickets,” he explained.
The goal of the program is to free up parking spaces downtown and increase circulation.
“Instead of having downtown full with whether it be employees parking, whether it be people parking down there to go wherever it may be. It was really to get turnover in the downtown business district. That was the intent of the program and that will continue to be the intent,” added Chief Nord.
The Paso Robles City Council ultimately voted to keep the paid parking program in place, as is, for now.
They also decided to form a committee to consider potential changes to the program in the future.