Parking ban irks some Winnipeg businesses
Some restaurant owners in Winnipeg say the city's new residential parking ban system is hurting business.
The city is now divided into so-called snow zones, and if a vehicle is parked in a zone being plowed, it will get towed to a nearby street that has been plowed or is out of the active zone.
And there'll be a $150 ticket on the windshield.
On Tuesday evening, the plows were in Zone G, around the Corydon and Crescentwood areas.
Michael Kesselman at the Grove Pub & Restaurant, at the corner of Stafford Street and Grosvenor Avenue, says half of the Grove's customers park on residential streets.
Those streets were right in the heart of Zone G, which meant there were very few places for customers to find a place to park. That left the typically-bustling pub nearly empty.
"People were saying. 'oh there's no parking, so were not coming down tonight,'" Kesselman said.
The owner of Orlando's Seafood Grill on Corydon Avenue said he, too, had customers cancel reservations on Tuesday because of the parking problem.
"They were on the elderly side and they didn't want to walk forever [from somewhere they could park]," Arnaldo Carreira said.
Both he and Kesselman wants the city to rethink the system, such as starting the plowing later, at 10 p.m. or even midnight, rather than during prime business hours.
“Or [have] smaller areas getting plowed instead of, you know, so many streets from one area,” said Kesselman.
