Parking tickets will make Broad St. a ghost town

I used to live and work in Red Bank. Now I live in Little Silver, just five minutes away. I go into Red Bank once or twice a year only when it's absolutely necessary, and here's why.

On Sept. 22 at 1:45 p.m., I pulled into the English Plaza parking lot and parked in front of a metered spot along the southern edge of the lot. I put a quarter in the meter and crossed over to the coin and stamp shop on Monmouth Street to pick up an item that only they carried. I was there for less than five minutes, maybe less than three. When I walked back to the lot, there was a parking ticket pasted on my window and no meter agent to be found anywhere in the entire lot. This guy (or girl) must have been lurking for violators like me and was obviously pretty quick about it!

Angry, I looked around and I spied a sign on a pole next to my parking spot that stated that this particular area was reserved for permit parking only until 2 p.m. I looked down at my watch and it was 1:55. I broke the law. Five minutes later and I would not have broken the law. Or, if I had chosen to park in the many open spaces in the next lane over, I would not have broken the law. Shame on me for parking in a spot closer to my destination, and also for not understanding that this particular spot was both a metered and a permitted spot depending on the time of day.

In times of prosperity, this type of unfriendly behavior is usually tolerated by most consumers, but the times are changing quickly.

So here is a polite little warning to downtown Red Bank: you lost me a long time ago; keep up this type of practice and I guarantee you will begin to lose a lot more shoppers and Broad Street will become the ghost town it once was back in the '70s.
Brian Daneman
Little Silver