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RV Parking, Another Reason to Roll on Through P.G.: One Man's Opinion

By 250 News

by Ben Meisner

It depends on who the RV operator is as to whether you will get a comment on the matter of RV parking at Big Box retailers. 

There are operators who think that by preventing RV’s from parking in Big Box lots, those travelers will head to their RV parks.  Other operators are saying that a by law will have little effect on their business . They say by preventing people from parking at say the Casino or Wal Mart they will simply move on to other centers such as Vanderhoof, or Quesnel where the City leaves the parking issue up to the retailer involved. 

Can the bad publicity surrounding the move by the city have far reaching effects?  I doubt it. 

There may be a segment of the travelling US public who may read about what our city has done , but rest assured, trying to reach all the travelers heading north from the USA would be next to impossible.  But that really isn’t the issue now is it? 

On one hand you have many big box retailers in the city who do not permit parking and if you're going to allow one group of stores to say its okay, then everyone should be treated in a like manner. 

Boon Dockers will simply move to where parking in commercial lots is acceptable. If they are self contained they would prefer to spend a few nights in a parking lot and then take a full serviced facility in order to take on water and dump their sewer. By the basic of calculations, that means staying at an RV park once every three or so days. 

Wal Mart is happy to provide the lot, they are hoping that they will turn the stay into a customer. The Super Store isn’t because they aren’t playing on a level field by refusing RV’s to park, so they have an argument. 

In the end, City Hall  is trying to bring in a law not unlike the “burn wood in your fireplace by law “, it may be on the books but isn’t worth the power to blow it to hell. 

So the city will receive some bad press.  The stores who are the people facing the fines, and when ticketed, they  will say  that the RV was just a customer, the Casino will say they were playing the slots, the By law officer will make double overtime trying to write the tickets and the city legal staff will be rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of taking those pesky merchants to court to lay the rubber to them. 

In the end of the line, it will be the taxpayer who will foot the bill for the whole mess and regretfully, nothing will change, except  for one thing; Travelers will be saying, "What’s with that city?  Don’t want hockey enforcers, don’t want RV’s to free park, have the worst air in the province and they're looking to improve their tourist traffic? … really … 

I’m Meisner, and that is one man's opinion .


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