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LETTER: 'Infuriating' parking ticket spoils visitors' weekend

Letter writer says he 'understands that COVID-19 has been a challenge for everyone, not only Orillia, but to deal with it in this manner is very disturbing'
resident parking sign at tudhope visitor lot
These signs are located at strategic locations near city parks. However, an out-of-town visitor, who received a ticket for parking in the gravel lot near Sweet Dreams, was upset he received a ticket, saying there were no signs at that lot. Dave Dawson/OrilliaMatters
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My wife and I decided to go for our very first outing with an overnight stay in a motel since the March Lockdown due to COVID-19. We chose Orillia. Why Orillia?

Well, since around 30 years ago I had a sister that lived in Orillia and we would visit her at least once a year. During our visits an inevitable trip was made into beautiful downtown Orillia and a stop at the Mariposa Market for something sinfully delicious to eat.

However, our most favourite spot was the Orillia harbour with the beautiful boardwalk and parks.

Although my older sister is no longer in Orillia, which she misses tremendously, we have continued our visits over the years as it still has remained one of our favourite locations to visit due to its beauty and our memories from years of previous visits. We have stayed in numerous Orillia hotels and frequented many restaurants over these years, making our humble contributions to Orillia businesses. 

We made our booking with Stone Gate Inn for Saturday night and headed out of Guelph, our hometown, with excitement on a very beautiful day. We arrived in Orillia shortly after noon and checked out our hotel location on Laclie Street but it was too early to check in so we decided to go check out the harbour.

We continued on Laclie Street to Tecumseth Street which brought us to Centennial Drive which we were familiar with from years of visits. We noticed that all the parking lots on the harbour side of Centennial Drive had large signs stating Resident Parking Only - No Visitor Parking.

The parking lots were not near filled and it seemed odd to us that visitors couldn’t park anywhere. We drove all the way to Mississaga Street East to a small gravel parking area, but noticed a sign that said something to the effect of, 'Buy a $50 Day Permit' to park there. We had no plan to be there all day and my frank feeling was, “I don’t have 'Sucker' written on my forehead!”

We turned around and went back on Centennial Drive and found a small gravel parking area just to the left of Sweet Dreams Ice Cream Shop. There were a few other cars parked there and there were no signs anywhere stating that one couldn’t park there.

We were happy to find the spot close to the harbour because all we wanted to do was walk along the boardwalk to take in the beauty and kill some time before checking into our motel at 3 p.m.

We enjoyed a beautiful walk along the harbour and sat on some of the benches along the way. The boardwalk was not very busy and it was very easy to keep our “physical distance” for COVID-19 protocol, something we are very aware as we are both in our seventies. We carry our masks faithfully and wear them wherever proper physical distancing is not possible.

We spent a wonderful hour-and-a-half or so at the harbour and it was time to go to our motel. We arrived at our car and noticed a yellow slip on our car windshield and were totally baffled to find a $100 parking ticket for parking on public property without consent.

Nowhere did it say that we could not park there. But, oh yes, Orillia is very generous, if you pay your ticket early, it’s only $80. Either way, it’s a ridiculously expensive stroll on Orillia harbour. It’s a great money grab for the city in times of reduced tax revenue.

We ran into the young lady that was handing out these tickets and asked her what this was all about. Her story was that you had a big problem earlier in the summer with overcrowding at the harbour and that there were signs all around saying you couldn’t park there and that it was on your website.

Yes, there were signs all over the place but where we parked there were none, other than a couple of signs that stated you could not park there with boat trailers, and we did not have a boat trailer.

To say the least, we found this extremely upsetting and infuriating and it definitely spoiled our weekend. If it wasn’t for the fact that we had motel reservations, we would have simply driven home.

I fully understand that COVID-19 has been a challenge for everyone, not only Orillia, but to deal with it in this manner is very disturbing. You could have simply blocked off the parking lots you did not want people to park in in order to reduce the number of people. Simply patrol the area and when the parking areas are full send people on their way.

Basically you are punishing any visitor with a $50 permit or a $100 fine. For your parking ticketer to tell us that this was all on your website is completely nonsense. Who goes away for a short vacation and checks a city’s website first to see if visitors can park anywhere? Certainly not us, have never done that.

I listened to Mayor Steve Clarke's short YouTube update and he mentions that “We love our neighbours and visitors, but -------“ I’m not sure what he means to say, but it sounds like, just don’t come here. All the signage and the charging of $50 a day to visitors tells me that you don’t want us to visit but to go away.

If you really don’t want visitors you could have posted signs at the entrances to your city stating “Visitors Not Welcome During COVID-19”. I would have thought that visitors would be welcome to some extent to bolster the local business.

You probably think I’m just rambling on, which I am, but it feels good just to spill out my feelings on this if nothing else. Do I sound bitter? That’s because I am. I realize that chances of cancelling this ticket are about zero to none, so we will do our “civic duty” and pay it under protest, but at least I had the opportunity to vent and Orillia more than likely won’t be on our list of favourite destinations any more after 30 plus years. It’s your loss, not ours.

Clarence Wigboldus
Guelph

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