Reaction to parking meters from business owners mixed

When downtown businesses convinced Lynchburg to get rid of parking meters more than 30 years ago, Bill Puckett didn’t expect to see them again.

“If you want to discourage people from coming to shop downtown, this is an excellent way to do it,” said Puckett, owner of Lynchburg Camera Shop, which has been downtown since the 1930s.

“There were good reasons to remove the parking meters back in the day, and they are still valid today.”

About half a block down Main Street, bridal shop owner Leecy Fink is not worried about the looming return of paid parking. She said downtown’s unique qualities will keep customers coming.

“I would hope that people would realize that because we are offering something different, that if they had to pay a dollar per hour for parking, it’s worth it to shop down here,” Fink said.

Puckett and Fink represent two distinct schools of thought on Main Street as Lynchburg moves toward paid parking in downtown parking decks and streets.

One thing most business owners agree on is that there are parking problems, and most of them stem from downtown workers parking in the street for hours on end.

The city’s solution to that problem, proposed by Carl Walker Inc.’s study of downtown parking in 2007, is to reinstate paid parking.

Barber Doug Pickeral pointed out that his customers don’t have trouble finding places to park — most spaces on his block between 11th and 12th street were empty on a recent Thursday afternoon.

“If they have to pay a dollar parking, then they wouldn’t come down here to get a haircut,” said Pickeral, who has worked downtown for more than 50 years.

Just inside his front door, Pickeral displays a parking meter that Lynchburg used decades ago. According to news archives, the meters were removed in 1978 after businesses convinced the city that free parking would help downtown compete with new shopping districts.

Robin Cheek, owner of Farmer’s Seed and Supply, said that The Plaza used to advertise its “acres of free parking.”

Bringing paid parking back is “the stupidest thing I could ever think for them to do,” said Cheek, whose family has owned the store for decades. “I feel like this is going to give people one more reason not to come downtown.”

The area would need more stores and attractions before people would want to pay to park, she said.

Downtown developer Oliver Kuttner said the area needs a movie theater and more restaurants to attract more people to visit and spend money there. Until then, it is not ready for paid parking, he said. “We want more people to want to go downtown, not fewer.”

Several opponents of paid parking said stricter enforcement would suffice to solve the parking problems. Melinda Tennis, owner of a frame shop on Church Street, said city officials should do more to encourage companies to tell their employees not to park in the street.

Other business owners see some advantages to paid parking in the street and do not think it would choke business.

David Somers, owner of L. Oppleman Pawn, said a lot has changed since downtown business was declining and the parking meters were removed.

“I think it’s finally having its rebirth,” Somers said. “It’s not just talk now. You’ve got a lot of people putting their own money into buildings.”

He said most people wouldn’t be bothered by paying 50 cents to $1 to park.

Beth Baxter, owner of Taste Selects Confectionary on Ninth Street, said the $50 per-month fee to park at the Midtown Parking Deck didn’t deter her from opening her store downtown. She doubts parking pay stations will affect business much.

Biff Bowen, owner of Bowen Jewelry, also said he doesn’t anticipate much of an impact on his business because it has its own parking lot, and if its customers chose to park in the street, the business would be willing to pay for the parking.

Rob Wyatt said most customers of Downtown Pizza walk in from their offices, so paid parking would not affect them. He thinks most of the new system’s impact on businesses could be temporary. “After six months to a year, everyone’s going to be used to it,” he said.