Following The Leader’s June 26 story on parking enforcement within the city of Port Townsend, the city’s business owners, employees and customers had no shortage of opinions to offer about the availability of parking spaces in Port Townsend, and very few of them were pleased about it.

According to those The Leader interviewed, tourists worry about receiving tickets, even locals struggle to fit in all their errands within the allotted time, and the workers who serve them find themselves hoofing it, often up and down some big hills, to get from their cars to their jobs and back again.

WATERFRONT PIZZA

Josiah Lane, an 11-year employee of Waterfront Pizza, was blunt in his assessment.

“We can’t [expletive] park anywhere,” said Lane, who added that downtown parking “[expletive] sucks,” because all the parking on the street is two-hour only.

Lane recalled that, before the city stopped ticketing, his fellow employees were constantly getting tickets, including the owner, whom he noted is in her 60s, and does not want to park far away.

Lane understands the need for two-hour parking, because it keeps traffic and business flowing through downtown, but he believes it shouldn’t be at a cost to locals and employees.

The only places Lane was aware of where a car wouldn’t get ticketed were at the skatepark or on Washington Street, except he almost always found Washington Street full, and the skate park is farther than Lane feels he and his fellow employees should have to walk to park for work.

“It’s fine right now, but as soon as they start ticketing again, it’s gonna suck,” Lane said. “You either have to leave work to move your car, or park far away.”

As far as Lane is concerned, either employees of downtown businesses should be able to pay a yearly flat rate for a permit that will allow them to park during the work day, or there should be eight-hour parking.

From what Lane has observed, parking has only gotten worse since the most recent spate of downtown construction, in no small part because a courtyard now standards where there was one a parking lot next to Better Living Through Coffee.

“They took away 12 or 13 spots, and said there would be more,” Lane said. “Where are they? I don’t see them.”

SILVERWATER CAFE

Bethany Mahaffey, a server at the Silverwater Cafe, parks next to it “fairly often,” most of the time along the Washington Street hill, but sometimes next to Khu Larb or the Cellar Door.

Mahaffey is more likely to park on the hill because of her belief that those issuing tickets would be less likely to walk up the steep hill.

Fellow server Einav Bloom bikes to work, so parking is not an issue for her. She noted that she’s not alone in this regard, since several members of the kitchen staff don’t have cars, and are dropped off to work by their significant others, in part to avoid the parking issue.

Bloom believes it’s easier for her and Mahaffey, because they come to work right as most businesses are opening, whereas their evening shift colleagues have a harder time.

When Bloom worked evening shifts, “I had to circle around a bunch. It was kind of frustrating.”

Mahaffey was issued a ticket roughly a year ago, and admitted to being afraid of incurring another for a while afterward, but she hasn’t gotten one since.

Co-owner Alison Hero agreed there’s a shortage of parking downtown.

“It’s frustrating for many customers,” Hero said. “I think it probably deters them in the summer, and I think a lot of people avoid coming downtown. People are irritated. Someone will come in and say, ‘There’s two of us, but my husband is looking for parking.’ And he’ll come in 15-20 minutes later.”

Hero reported that “lots” of her friends, family members and acquaintances have told her they don’t even try coming downtown.

Hero has what she described as a “perfect” solution; since Memorial Field slopes downhill, she suggested installing a parking garage beneath a raised turf field, which she asserted would attract more regional sports teams and matches, while also generating profit through the use of both the field and the parking garage.

Hero comes in early in the morning, and parks up on the Washington Street hill.

“It makes me nervous with how far away they have to park, and then have to walk that far again at night,” said Hero, who harbors safety concerns.

When the Silverwater Cafe’s building was remodeled 25 years ago, Hero recalled that the city made them purchase future parking spots, to invest in the future parking fund.

Hero isn’t sure if this future parking fund yielded any fruit, although she concedes it might have funded the park-and-ride at the Haines Place.

Hero has seen parking get worse because “the town has gotten more discovered. We do all the promotion to come to town, and they come, and then we don’t have parking.”

Oak Harbor resident John Wright walks off the ferry from Whidbey Island to avoid parking, which he said was worse here than in Whidbey, with spaces for disabled people proving especially scarce.

“Finding places has been difficult, especially in the summertime,” Wright said.

LEHANI’S DELI & COFFEE

Bill LeMaster is the co-owner of Lehani’s, along with Lynn Hamlin-LeMaster, and described parking access as a recurring issue for his employees and customers alike.

“See any parking spaces open?” LeMaster asked rhetorically. “It’s like this most of the year.”

LeMaster himself is relatively untroubled by the level of parking access, since he believes the city makes too many accommodations for automobiles to begin with, especially given the community’s expressed commitment to enhancing walkability and bicycling.

“Whether it is regulations for additional dwelling units in the town, requirements for cars, it is too car-centric,” LeMaster said. “I putt around and find a place to park and walk, or I put my flashers on and unload out front.”

The average distance out that people have to park is two to three blocks.

“Wow, it’s really terrible,” LeMaster said with a laugh.

LeMaster doesn’t believe the distance deters prospective customers as much as the enforcement of parking restrictions.

“You have visitors that are trying to shop, and maybe have lunch and see a movie, and they only have two hours to get out of their spot before they get a ticket,” said LeMaster, who believes a lack of citations would be better for the tourist trade. “It might be befuddling to some people that are older, when there could be some more handicapped spots or something of that nature.”

LeMaster hears no shortage of complaints about parking from visitors to town, who worry about whether the police are actually enforcing the parking sign regulations.

“Employees have called on their cell phones, saying, ‘Hey, we’re going to be a couple of minutes late because we’re looking for a place to park,’” LeMaster said. “It’s part of the flavor.”

LeMaster nonetheless believes most motorists steer clear of spaces for the disabled unless they qualify for them, and doesn’t see parking access as a situation that has changed significantly over time.

“The bigger vehicles sometimes create more of a problem, like big motorhomes on narrow streets such as Taylor,” LeMaster said. “But no, I personally don’t think parking is an issue. People feel as if they’re entitled to walk only 10 paces to someplace, and get frustrated because they’re not getting their way. They need to get over their entitlement issues.”

Customer Timothy Martin, who hails from Chicago, drove across on the ferry, and his family frequently vacations in the Port Townsend area during the summer months.

“You have to drive around a little bit, and it is a little bit of a walk, maybe a couple of blocks,” Martin said. “But it’s really not far.”

Martin is accustomed to walking in big cities like Chicago, and appreciates that Port Townsend’s parking spaces are free.

“The density here is nothing compared to what it is in any city,” Martin said. “I am sure Seattle is that way.”

Even the Port Townsend practice of large supply trucks unloading in the middle of the street is familiar to Martin from the years he’s lived in Philadelphia and Chicago.

“Do you want density in Port Townsend?” Martin said. “Shops are more vibrant, people are coming and going. I am sure you want to balance. I am not going to give any advice here on how you develop your town, but you want to balance that walkability, and having walkability you need to have density. Having density means it is harder to find parking.”

While Martin sees this as an inevitable consequence of developing the downtown, he also sees it as evidence of the downtown’s desirability to visitors.

Martin’s sister left her car behind to walk off the ferry in Port Townsend, and Martin credited Port Townsend’s density with allowing her to see so much of the city as a pedestrian.

Lehani’s barista Debbie Holt describes parking as so difficult to find that she doesn’t even bother, and takes the bus instead.

Holt reported that the top of the hill is particularly well-used for parking, and she’s often asked by customers whether the two-hour parking rule is enforced.

“I always tell them yes,” Holt said. “Otherwise, they’re going to get a ticket, and come in and yell at me. We’ve had several cooks who would come in, run back out to move their cars, then come back in. It’s just a hassle.”

Holt blamed the recent street construction to removing “a bunch” of parking spaces, as well as listing a number of spaces as two-hour parking for the first time.

“For people who want to shop, or want to eat and then go shop, that’s just not enough time,” Holt said. “It’s poor planning. We are a tourist community. Okay, I get it; you’re a local and you don’t want to come downtown when everybody is here, fine. Don’t come downtown, but don’t make it hard on the businesses, or that’s going to drive people away.”

Holt advocated deregulating parking.

“There are other ways to make money,” Holt said. “I know this takes a big chunk of money, but I would put in meters, make it cheap, let them say, ‘I am going to be here four hours,’ chunk in money and go,” Holt said.

NIFTY FIFTIES

Omar Santos, owner of the Nifty Fifties since last year, reported that his crew of six employees usually spend four days a week parking two to three blocks away from the restaurant, and even then, they’re only able to locate open spaces after about five minutes of driving around.

“We open at 11 a.m., so even if you arrive 10 minutes before opening time, it’s super-hard to find parking spaces,” Santos said. “A lot of our customers are afraid of getting ticketed, because with a two-hour maximum parking time, you have to be quick if you want to fit in shopping and a meal.”

Santos feels the relative availability of parking spots has remained about the same since he took over Nifty Fifties a year ago, but since his own shifts routinely last 10 to 12 hours, he finds himself not only getting ticketed, but also getting those fines compounded.

“I live here, but it makes me feel like I’m just another tourist,” Santos said.

When it came to possible solutions, Santos found himself of like minds with one of his customers, Merrily Olson, who’s lived in the area for the past 19 years.

“I wish there were more parking spaces, but where would they build them?” Santos said.

“There just doesn’t seem to be anywhere to put them,” agreed Olson, who only shops in downtown Port Townsend about once a month, but almost always finds herself hunting for parking spaces when she does.

Santos would welcome setting aside two to three parking spaces per business, and even suggested a three-to four-story-high parking structure, similar to those in Seattle.

PRIMA MATERIA

“Every day, we have to park up on the hill next to the Post Office,” said Ellen Caldwell, an employee at Prima Materia. “We all live here, we work here and we pay taxes here, so we should be able to park here.”

Caldwell objected to what she saw as the inconsistency of Port Townsend’s parking policies and their enforcement.

“I can have people in my store for an hour and a half,” Caldwell said. “We can’t have something that forces people to leave, and not spend their money here in town.”

Caldwell has heard some people complain about parking meters, but she sees them as a better alternative than Port Townsend’s current state of affairs.

Among the other suggestions offered by Prima Materia employees were placards for residents, which would allow them to pay monthly fee to park within a certain radius of their businesses, and parking passes for businesses, so that business owners could provide parking for their employees, especially if some of those employees are disabled.