ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — Park illegally in historic St. Augustine and pay the price, now possibly more than ever. St. Augustine city leaders are set to vote Monday night on nearly tripling the penalty across St. Augustine’s historic district and surrounding areas for illegal parking from a $35 to $100 ticket.
“It’s really just a money play, honestly,” St. Augustine local Stephen Alvarez complained to Action News Jax Sunday. “It’s going to affect me, it’s going to affect my people, it is going to affect everybody if you live here, even if you don’t. We want to drive people to come here, but we don’t want to tax them crazy.”
St. Augustine officials say illegal parking has become a major issue in St. Augustine’s historic district and surrounding neighborhoods, with the hope being that increased fines will scare away those ignoring parking meters and help reduce parking congestion across the city.
However, locals Action News Jax spoke to Sunday morning said they believe it’ll only further line the city’s pockets, while doing very little to help the city’s parking crisis.
“People are just going to park wherever,” St. Augustine local Betsy Beckham said. “They’ll pay for the ticket as long as they could park close by and enjoy it, especially during the Nights of Lights, where it’s so crazy busy.”
“People are gonna do what they got to do regardless,” Alvarez added. “I don’t think it’s gonna help one bit. I think it’s gonna help fund whoever’s idea it was.”
Ultimately, locals Sunday said they’d instead like to see city officials shift their focus to more free and affordable parking options across the city, for both those visiting and living in St. Augustine.
“We wanna also take care of, you know, our visitors or the tourists and just make it easy for them so they could come back,” Beckham argued. “I know that helps all the local businesses also. But yeah, somehow, I mean, without doing a lot of building, I don’t want to mess up St. Augustine. It’s so beautiful, but to provide a place that we could park. And just walk around and enjoy it.”
The ordinance is set to be voted on at the St. Augustine City Commission meeting happening Monday night at 5 p.m.
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<
[DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks]
[SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter]
Click here to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here to stream Action News Jax live.
