Free Today, Pay Tomorrow

By: Josh Seidman

Three years after a controversial metered parking system was introduced in the village of Port Jefferson, only two things are certain – the meters are generating a substantial amount of revenue for the village and the conflict the system has created between village officials and village merchants is escalating as the village’s peak season approaches.

 The latest battle revolves around a vote that was passed by the village trustees on March 15 to extend the hours of metered parking enforcement from 10 p.m. until 2 a.m. While it’s been more than six weeks since the vote was passed, the new enforcement hours have yet to begin.  

There is no prospective timetable for when these hours will begin said the village of Port Jefferson’s mayor, Margot Garant.  She and village merchants fear that the longer hours will strangle businesses in an economy already stricken by recession.

“Just when everybody’s going to start wanting to come out and come down here, they’re going to actually make them not want to come,” said a Daylene Cotter, a Smithtown resident who’s been managing the Cactus Salon in Port Jefferson for the last three years.  “You’re going to have an empty town.”

Joe Erland, who has been a village trustee for the last four years and has been the board’s liaison to the parking committee for the almost three years, said that the extension is necessary to make back the revenue that was lost when the metered system was turned off for four months between November 15, 2009 and March 15, 2010.  In addition, he feels that the later hours spread the burden of supporting the meters to the customers of businesses – like restaurants and bars – that are primarily active at night. 

“The later hours have been talked about for years,” Erland said.  “In fact a lot of merchants have expressed feelings about fairness saying ‘how come we’re being affected and not them?’”

If the extended hours are implemented, metered parking in Port Jefferson would be enforced for 16 hours a day, making it one of longest daily enforcement periods of any village’s metered parking system on Long Island. 

The debate over the extended hours reflects a larger issue – the necessity of the metered system – that has plagued the village since June 2007 when metered pay-for-parking began.

Map of Metered Parking in Port Jefferson