Parking ticket refunds coming for new downtown parking zones

Refunds for parking tickets The city is giving back some money it has collected in parking fines. Shaun Frenette explains why.

The city is issuing refunds to people who parked in the new downtown zones after it was discovered the bylaw was not changed properly.

On August 1^st, the city started charging to park starting at 7:00 a.m. instead of 9:00 a.m. on most roads between 3^rd and 9^th Avenues and 1^st and 8^th Streets S.W.

The city cited occupancy levels in the core being over the 80 per cent threshold in parking management guidelines as the reason for the change, but many businesses downtown complained that the charge would make them lose early-morning customers.

“People are very conservative about that so, kind of changing the rules makes it more of a challenge for people coming downtown,” said Michael Ciccaglione, owner of the Black Cat Lounge and Grill.

But now, a routine review of the bylaw last week led the Parking Authority to announce the refunds for any tickets written for those zones since August.

About 150,000 tickets were written during that time and will be withdrawn, all convictions will be quashed, and fines refunded.

If you should get a refund, you can email your name, phone number and licence plate number to [e-mail] to get your money back. If you paid by cellphone, you'll get an automatic credit.

Enjoy the parking reprieve while it lasts. The bylaw was changed by council on Monday and the zones will be enforced again starting January 2nd, 2017.