A car rental company racked up $1,600 in parking fines over the past few months after the municipality directed bylaw to ticket unused rental vehicles that have remained parked for more than 24 hours in municipal parking lots.
Paul Hardy, owner of SunDog Tour Company, which operates Avis Car Rental and Budget, told council he faces a stack of parking tickets since the directive was issued on April 28.
鈥淥bviously they鈥檝e made parking an issue,鈥� said Hardy, during a committee-of-the-whole meeting June 14.
鈥淚 want to work within the system. I don鈥檛 want to skirt any rules in terms of what I should be paying and how much parking I should have to accommodate my fleet, but at the same time I need to be able to operate my business reasonably and most importantly conveniently for my guests,鈥� he said, adding he intends to fight the tickets.
On April 22, bylaw sent a letter addressed to Hardy to stop using municipal parking lots to house unused rental vehicles or the municipality would begin enforcing Jasper鈥檚 traffic bylaw.
According to the bylaw, unrented rental vehicles are not allowed to be parked in municipal parking lots or on roadways for more than 24 hours at a time.
Currently, Avis Car Rental has a lease with Parks Canada to use 15 parking spots in a lot on Connaught Drive by the steam engine. The letter, which was obtained by the 51暗网, asked Hardy to move any unused rental vehicles from the municipal lot to his designated spots and gave him a week before the municipality would begin enforcing the bylaw.
The letter was not sent to the other two car rental companies in town, which operate out of the same parking lot.
鈥淎s long as rental vehicles are circulating and moving and they鈥檙e not occupying parking spaces for longer than 24 hours then we haven鈥檛 been enforcing the bylaw,鈥� said Mark Fercho, the town鈥檚 chief administrative officer.
In a follow up email, Fercho said bylaw enforcement is not meant to be punitive, but is used instead to gain compliance.
In response, Hardy wrote a letter asking council to consider swapping his 15 designated parking spots behind the steam engine on Connaught Drive for 14 non-designated parking spots in a public parking lot across from SunDog鈥檚 office at 414 Connaught Drive.
According to Hardy鈥檚 letter, the company started renting office space in the train station in the summer of 2015 so it would have more commercial parking spaces on Connaught Drive.
Despite renting office space in the building, he said the company doesn鈥檛 actually use it. Instead cars are rented and returned from its main office at 414 Connaught Drive.
During the meeting, he told council it鈥檚 not reasonable or viable for his customers to pick up and return rental cars from the steam engine parking lot, especially because many of his guests are elderly and have limited mobility. He also said it鈥檚 not viable to operate a shuttle service between the office and the parking lot.
Instead he proposed swapping the 15 designated parking spots he currently rents for 14 non-designated spots across from the office.
鈥淚 realize that public parking is at a premium so I thought by doing this there鈥檚 actually far more public parking across from 414 Connaught than there is by the steam engine and it鈥檚 also a great benefit to the retailers in the area over there,鈥� said Hardy.
He emphasized several times during the meeting that the 14 parking spots across from the office would be non-designated spots, in other words the company would simply use whatever spots were available at the time.
鈥淚f it turns out all of the spaces are filled across from 414 Connaught that will be my problem. I鈥檒l just have to find some place else to put them or that鈥檚 when I鈥檒l shuttle cars from my two other areas in the industrial compound, next to NAPA and Jasper Towing, where we have another 50 spots.鈥�
During the discussion Mayor Richard Ireland questioned whether Hardy鈥檚 permit with Parks Canada allows him to do what he is proposing.
鈥淐an we entertain this idea or are you bound by a lease that you can鈥檛 sublet those spots to somebody else? I鈥檇 like to know what you proposed is permissible under your lease.鈥�
Ireland also took time to defend the municipality鈥檚 bylaw officers.
鈥淚 think our staff are doing exactly the right thing,鈥� said Ireland. 鈥淲e are not in the business of sponsoring commercial efforts by providing public parking, everybody else has to deal with this, so I appreciate the inconvenience, but its absolutely appropriate that we look at private use of public space.鈥�
The issue will be discussed again during a committee-of-the-whole meeting on June 28, before of an intergovernmental meeting with Parks Canada scheduled for the same day.
Paul Clarke
[email protected]
