By Ashley Toland Editor

A friend of mine, who used to live here and hadn’t been downtown in a year, came in for BayFest a couple of weekends ago. As we strolled down Dauphin, it made me proud to show her all of the new condos being built along the way and to point out which empty buildings and lots would soon be brought back to life and turned into even more condos, groovy restaurants and apartments, as well as the space where the new independent movie theater would be. The jewel of our skyline, the RSA tower, with its lovely new crown, required no special mention, she just said “wow, the tower looks amazing. Downtown is going to look entirely different by this time next year.”

Her amazement and my pride were exacerbated by the overwhelming crowds at BayFest, the excellent array of entertainment options after the festival each night and even by the BID stewards- those folks clad in purple shirts buzzing around on their futuristic, two-wheeled Segways, helping people out with escorts to their cars or directions. All of these things contributed to the very palpable energy.

And it’s not just the nightlife that’s seemingly gulped down a double shot of espresso. You also feel it just as much when the sun is shining, even on the weekends, a time when it seemed like a ghost town as recently as just a few years ago.

But now, you see hordes of people making their way down to the Market on the Square each Saturday, couples lounging away on the Cathedral Square lawn and kids playing in the fountain on any given Sunday. It is clear our city’s heart has been restarted, zapped by the paddles held by the first brave business owners and those who followed, the city and Main Street Mobile and the downtown redevelopment alliance.

It’s been an awesome process to witness- which is exactly why it is so absolutely maddening to have parking meter men blacken (or should I say neon green) the eye of downtown’s pretty new face.

When the city hired Central Parking to begin meter collections and enforcement a few years ago, downtown business owners and their employees, used to the lax (at best) enforcement of coin purse-friendly meters, lost their minds. The “Parking Nazis” were accused of being overzealous and aggressive, of stalking meters and placing those annoyingly bright, neon green tickets on every person’s car who didn’t make it back the second their meter expired and even on delivery trucks trying to get goods to businesses. Habitual offenders’ cars were booted, and it cost a small fortune to have the not-so-fashionable auto shoes removed. It was too much.

And gone were the days of getting an hour and fifteen minutes for a quarter. New meters were brought in and old ones reprogrammed. George Washington’s coin would now only buy you 15 minutes. Again, too much.

People were angry, and they marched down to city hall to let the mayor and council know about it. The outcry made former Mayor Dow ask the Nazis to take a less aggressive approach, grace periods were allowed during the lunch hour and people just adjusted to the change. It didn’t seem to be as much of an issue anymore.

Eventually the Nazis were replaced by two retired police officers. At first, everyone thought this meant the enforcement would get more relaxed, but alas, that was not the case. It became more stringent and the kinder, gentler policies used by the Nicer Nazis were abandoned. The grumpier, old meter men said they knew nothing about such things as free lunch hours and that they were supposed to not give you a ticket if you walked up while they were writing it. These were all policies released to the media, but when the meter men were questioned about it, all they would do is bark, “I don’t know anything about that.”

And lately it seems to have gotten much worse. Two of our local downtown businesses were recently victimized by the parking police in a fashion that clearly crosses the line.

The first happened in late August at Picklefish. According to owner Mead Miller, one of his waitresses picked up some supplies for him and pulled up by his door to unload the stuff early one morning. She forgot to turn her flashers on and before she got back outside, a meter man was standing there writing a $50 ticket. She tried to explain the situation and even jumped in her car and moved it up to an authorized space just a few feet up, which Miller said infuriated the cop since he thought she was trying to drive away.

She was given the ticket even after she immediately moved the car and even after she told the guy she was simply unloading supplies for her boss. The manager on duty came out and tried to reason with the meter man, but he refused to listen, so Miller said the manager basically told the guy to get a life and went back in. The meter cop grumbled to someone (not the manager) that he needed to come out and apologize. Apparently he didn’t get that message.

About an hour later two of MPD’s finest came in and arrested the manager for disorderly conduct and failure to obey, put him in HANDCUFFS and took him down to Metro in HANDCUFFS. Unbelievable!

Judge Holmes Whiddon later dismissed the charges,

This should have never escalated to this level and as Miller said if the parking cop had just “extended me a little professional courtesy,” by allowing his waitress to have simply moved her car none of this would have ever happened.

The second horror story involved the Three Georges delivery van. Owner Scott Gonzalez has had a contentious relationship with the Nazis from the beginning, and was one of the most vocal opponents of Central Parking when they first took over.

Gonzalez said his actual loading zone is down a bit from his store on Joachim, near the homeless shelter, 15 Place. When he was using it, he said he had problems with people stealing merchandise out of the truck as it was being unloaded. So he talked to Central Parking and said he was told if he put a sign on the van he could pull up and use a closer parking space for unloading. He said, “I guess they just forgot about that.” The van began getting ticketed.

Last week, it was booted and by the time all the fines were added up, it was going to cost Gonzalez around $550 to get it removed. He said he talked to Central Parking and asked them to work with him and maybe knock down some of the fines. He said they told to him, “Yeah, you can resolve it, you can pay it.”

That is an excellent way to treat someone trying to bring the very people downtown who feed their meters.

No one, not Miller or Gonzalez, is saying downtown parking should be a free for all. But there are some definite problems with it. Number one, it’s too expensive. The city sets the fees and they need to reexamine it. You literally have to have a pocket full of change to be able to eat lunch. If you don’t, then what happens? You don’t go downtown for lunch or to shop, you go somewhere with a parking lot because you don’t want to deal with it.

Secondly, the seemingly aggressive behavior of the meter men needs to stop. Granted, it’s a thankless job. No one wants to be ticketed, but like Miller said there needs to be some “professional courtesy” extended- not to say if you own or work at a business downtown, you should be able to just park wherever you want, but you should be able to unload your van and do what it takes to operate a business.

Our downtown, with its burgeoning new look, seems to be suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder. On one hand, we have helpful stewards running around putting gas in our cars and asking if they can remove our bunions. And then you have these guys running around just being nasty. One of the personalities needs to go away or at least be controlled, and it ain’t the bunion removers.

Ashley Toland is Lagniappe editor. Contact her at ashleytoland@lagniappemobile.com.

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