The Virginian-Pilot 
                             THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Sunday, July 30, 1995                  TAG: 9507290104
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON    PAGE: 06   EDITION: FINAL 
TYPE: Letter 
                                             LENGTH: Short :   47 lines

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR - VIRGINIA BEACH

Full of sound and fury at Oceanfront parking

My wife and I, along with scores of other families, spent a wonderful evening on Sunday, July 17, watching the Oceanfront Shakespeare Festival's showing of ``Romeo & Juliet.'' The cast and crew did a fantastic job, as they did with all three shows. When we discovered that they intend to make it a yearly event, we were thrilled to see such entertainment and cultural diversity being offered to the community.

Unfortunately, our night ended on a sour note due to a parking ticket attached to our car because we were parked after 8 p.m. This was a pretty poor attempt at creating revenue by the City of Virginia Beach's Police Department. Those dozens of cars weren't owned by people who intended on staying up throughout the night. Those cars belonged to families, hoping to enjoy themselves and perhaps interest their children in a different form of entertainment and ed-u-ca-tion.

My wife and I feel blessed that we were given the opportunity to attend the very well-performed plays and we don't want to take anything away from them. But in the future, the mayor (who endorsed the plays) and local authorities may want to consider relaxing their parking policies for the enjoyment of those who support their community and its events.

Michael Salgy

Virginia Beach

I wonder how long it will take Beach leaders to realize they have a very acute parking problem at the Oceanfront. I'm one of the many Beach residents who will not attend any more festivities there because of parking tickets, ridiculous parking fees, no place to park because parking lots are full, or parking a mile away , if you can find a spot. I wonder how many people have vowed not to go back because of bad parking experiences.

Why can't the city build a parking garage to solve this problem once and for all? It will pay for itself in the long run just like Route 44 did.

John Aspiras

Virginia Beach by CNB