Carmel business owners met about the city’s parking meters

Carmel business owners sat down to talk about the issues with the new parking meters.

Todd Tice owns The Club, a clothing store off Ocean Avenue in Carmel and he said, “It got a little bit heated and people were bringing up a few too many particulars. You know this one car sat out there yesterday for five hours.”

Tice and Flaherty’s restaurant owner Ken Spilfogel called a meeting of business owners to talk about the pros and cons of the parking meters.

And eventually Tice said they all agreed.

“The big issue is that the businesses need to get there employees to park outside the business district,” said Tice.

The Carmel chamber of commerce told News Channel 5 that one of the reasons why the meters were installed was to keep store employees from parking on Ocean Avenue, which would free up spots.

There are just over 110 free parking spaces for Carmel employees to use at the Sunset Center. Vista Lobos, another parking lot across Ocean Avenue has 66 spaces.

Jasmine Medina works at The Club Carmel and she said,

“It’s free parking and the distance is a two-block walk. It’s not even that far. Get your exercise on.”

Sherree Smith owns Carriggs of Carmel and although she’s been fighting the meters with a petition at her store, she was at the morning meeting. Carrigg said she’s pleased with the discussion and hopes to see these meters go soon.

“What we’re going to do is try to go to all of the stores and businesses and have them show there employees where they can park for free. And go ahead and then just abolish this parking, paid parking and that’s my hopes so we’ll see where this leads,” said Smith.

The City Council plans to get feedback from the public on the six-month trial run for the parking meters in March. The petition to remove the parking meters is still inside Carriggs of Carmel store.