STONE HARBOR – Has the parking ticket become de rigueur for those who visit the borough in summer?
Last month the borough issued 1,224 parking tickets, but the lack of vocal reaction has been deafening.
The previous July saw 1,247 tickets, a mere 23 more, and representatives of the chamber of commerce and individual business owners flooded the Borough Council with requests for relief.
The number of citations this July produced no raised eyebrows or council comments when Police Chief Thomas Schutta gave his monthly report at the governing body’s Aug. 20 meeting.
Trouble began in the borough when meters and kiosks were removed after the 2022 summer season. As 2023 dawned, the borough went to the ParkMobile smartphone app as the way for residents and visitors to pay for parking during the May 1 to Oct. 1 period, when paid parking is required in and near the business district.
The months from May through July 2023 saw 2,704 tickets issued compared with 398 in 2022, when meters and kiosks were still in place. It got to the point that the borough had to pay for a part-time clerk to help process tickets at the combined Avalon and Stone Harbor Municipal Court.
At the end of the 2023 season, council members said they believed the situation was finally settling down, drivers were increasingly OK with ParkMobile, and the 2024 season would be better; the improvement would simply be a product of enhanced familiarity.
In comparing the 2,704 tickets issued through July in 2023 to the 2,284 this year to date, and those numbers with 2022’s 398 tickets, it is difficult to see where the expected improvement will occur.
But the council at the end of last year saw the more than 500% increase in parking tickets over 2022 in a different light. Council members pointed to statistics that said the number of individuals getting tickets is a small percentage of all those who used the app successfully.
Those individuals receiving tickets may represent for the council an irreducible number of drivers who have become the unintended victims of a shift to a more modern and efficient means of parking payment.
Contact the reporter, Vince Conti, at vconti@cmcherald.com.
