Sunday, April 29, 2007

The Royal Scam

I like downtown St. Louis, I really do. It's bustling place at 8:15 am and it's a nice cruise from Kirkwood, usually about 30-35 minutes from the burbs. A trip like that in Nashville would take days.


I do NOT however, enjoy the folly that I call "the parking scam". I got in at KMOX too late in the season to get any "monthly" parking deals. Apparently, the moment the baseball season starts, it's everyman for himself when it comes to finding a place to park. Most of the downtown places pull in their monthly programs and they specifically target unsuspecting saps like me by getting us to pay a daily fee. Last Thursday, the Cardinals had a day game, 1:15 start. The place where I normally park decided to charge their "game" rate of $15.00. (I get it at $4 a day). Even though it was 8:15 am, the guy at the booth wanted nothing to do with it. I decided that since I had a number of calls to make that day, I would go over to the other side of Keiner Plaza and put all the change I had in the meter. Cool, I had 50 minutes. So, at 8:20, I was good till 9:10.
At 9:12, I returned to find a $25 parking ticket on my car.
Normally, I'm not much of a conspiracy nut, (actually, I am) but I have had to fork over $75 in parking tickets this year downtown and got hosed once for $15.

This cannot continue.

1 comment:

Max said...

I guess we are the lucky ones over here at the college. Getting to park as a benefit in Stadium East is good. Course we are relegated to the roof during baseball season, have had tags removed from license plates, and have to occasionally deal with nimrods that sell the $20 ticket no realizing that I DO HAVE THE RIGHT to park (that was worse in the old bus lot).

Yes parking downtown is a total drag. When I worked over on Olive (in the old Channel 5 building) I dealt with daily pay parking. But then I got smart and started taking the bus to work. Since I drove a company van that was parked in a restricted space, it was great.

Course working in Clayton can be worse :).

Max...

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