STONE HARBOR – Parking fines collected on tickets issued in Stone Harbor in 2023 are at $110,015 and still climbing. In the previous year the fines collected stood at $30,840. The year-over-year increase was 257%.
Stone Harbor charges for parking in areas in and near its business district from May 1 to Oct. 31. In 2023 the borough decommissioned its parking kiosks and removed its parking meters, opting to go cold turkey into an electronic payment system that required those wishing to park to use the ParkMobile app.
Signs of trouble were immediate. In May, the first month in which the app became the method of payment, parking tickets issued by Stone Harbor police soared compared to the year before, from 33 tickets in 2022 to 564 in 2023.
News stories abounded about the borough opening its summer season in so unusual a way. A New York Post headline screamed, “Parking Tickets Up 1600% After Jersey Shore Town Launches App.” Philadelphia television news broadcasts carried the story. Statewide print and online news venues did the same.
At that point the situation was an embarrassment to the borough, but one discovered prior to the peak onslaught of tourists and second homeowners for the summer season. But it was too late to reattach old parking meter heads to their poles. The governing body did debate some responses, but hoped this was just a hiccup in the process of transitioning to the smartphone app.
Things, however, did not change quickly. In June, parking tickets jumped from 48 in 2022 to 893 in 2023. Then came July and the season was in full swing, with tickets soaring from 312 in 2022 to 1,242 in 2023.
New signage was ordered: A banner to string across 96th Street was paid for but never installed. One council member suggested a two-week parking holiday, but that idea got no support on the governing body.
The only solution appeared to be to wait it out and hope more and more people caught on to how to download and use the app. A police ambassador program was initiated to help those who found downloading the app difficult, but the ticket writers came right behind the ambassadors.
The result was that by the end of August, 3,409 tickets were issued compared with 748 in 2022, for an increase of 356%.
At the joint municipal court that serves both Avalon and Stone Harbor, a temporary worker was brought on to handle the increase in court activity caused by the surge in tickets. The court statistics obtained through an Open Public Records Act request tell the tale of the summer’s parking snafu.
Through the end of October, fines collected for Stone Harbor parking violations totaled $110,015. A parking ticket is $34 to $36, so it takes a lot of them to total $110,000.
Not all of that hike in revenue is due to parking violations in areas that required the app, but there is no reason to expect that violations for other types of illegal parking increased from year to year. The introduction of the app and volume of the increase are largely cause and effect.
The amount collected so far in 2023 will increase as the year comes to a close. In 2022, 8% of the total parking fines collected came in the months of November and December, after the paid parking season ended in October.
Stone Harbor’s 2023 budget anticipated $38,000 in fine revenue from the municipal court, which was in line with past history. Not all revenue from a parking violation goes back to the town that issued the ticket, but most of it does. Budget revenues from the municipal court in 2023 should shatter the anticipated revenue line in the budget.
As was noted frequently when the council debated possible actions, no one anticipated or desired to increase borough revenue in this manner. The reason for paid parking in the business district is to encourage turnover in the parking spaces to support a constant flow of foot traffic on the streets and in the stores.
There are those in the borough who no doubt hope the experience of this past summer is over. More advanced notice, better signage and increased familiarity with the app should bring the ticket numbers back to the historic level. The potential lesson learned is that cold-turkey introduction of a new system is often not the best choice.
Contact the author, Vince Conti, at vconti@cmcherald.com.
