Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 11, 1994 TAG: 9405110098
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-4 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Medium
When the downtown made its resurgence a year ago, Pulaski promoters thought it was a good problem to have - they could remember when there was plenty of parking downtown, because shoppers weren't coming.
To ease the situation early on, Pulaski town officials enacted a two-hour parking limit.
Because of personnel changes within the department, the officer who usually pulls parking duty has been assigned to other duties lately.
Well, she's back. And soon she'll have company.
``You're going to hear some people get very upset when we get back to enforcing the parking, but it will solve you all's problem,'' Capt. Barry Buckner told the Pulaski Business Alliance at its meeting Tuesday.
Juanita Taylor went back to work on parking enforcement last week, said Buckner, who has been in charge of the department since the retirement of Chief E.J. Williams this month. As departmental ranks are filled by new police academy graduates, Buckner said, a second parking enforcer will join Taylor so there may be two checking the streets at the same time on occasion.
The traditional way of checking to see if a vehicle has moved in two hours is to mark a tire at a certain spot with chalk. Buckner said there are people who move their cars about six inches every two hours to change the position of that mark and try to avoid a ticket.
``We've got a new idea on the way we're going to enforce it,'' he said of the two-hour limit. ``They're going to have to move spaces. ... Of course, the big question is how the judge feels about it.''
Normally a parking ticket would simply be paid, rather than taken to court. But Buckner predicted there would be at least one person who would test any new enforcement procedure.
One new procedure will be keeping a record of tag numbers of offenders and, when a pattern develops, to write them warning letters, he said. The problem, he said, ``is something that the town as a whole, not just the Police Department, is aware of.''
Paul Etzel, owner of the Renaissance Restaurant where the Alliance meets, said he has had weekend customers who have had to park several blocks away.
Buckner said the town's two-hour parking ordinance runs only from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday. There is no provision for forcing a parking turnover after 5:30 p.m. or on Sunday, although Alliance representatives can always bring that matter before Town Council to see if an extension is warranted.
Buckner also asked businesses with trucks unloading deliveries to have those vehicles turn their flashers on. Several have gotten tickets for being illegally parked in alleys or fire lanes, he said. ``We don't know what they're doing when they're not around the vehicle.''
Alliance members also discussed the success of joint advertising 15 of them have been doing for three months to share costs.
But those same businesses should not have to be the only ones paying to advertise downtown, some of their representatives said. ``A few of us cannot keep carrying the load for all of you down here,'' said Debbie Jonas, owner of Colony of Virginia.
``Let's all pull together," said J.B. Cruise of Old World Carpets. "Everybody chips in and everybody benefits.''
by CNB