Merchants fuming over city rules

BY ELYSE AMEND

elyse.amend@transcontinental.ca

Parking laws in Beaurepaire Village may be changing in the near future, but a number of Beaurepaire Village merchants still seem discontented with the way Beaconsfield’s administration applies and enforces different bylaws.

After approving two 15-minute parking spots in the village for people who just need to go in and out of businesses at last month’s public meeting, Beaconsfield council adopted a new bylaw Monday night that will change the current two-hour all-day parking limit.

The new rules — which Beaconsfield Mayor Bob Benedetti said will come into effect once parking signs go up — mean two-hour parking will only be in effect from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.; parking will be unlimited outside of those hours.

“That means it won’t allow people to park all day during business hours, but then anybody who parks after 6 p.m., in effect, will be able to park until night time,” Benedetti told The Chronicle.

However, the council room on Monday night was packed to capacity with vocal supporters of Beaurepaire merchant Bob Simatos, who said he believes his business has been unfairly targeted by Beaconsfield’s public security.

Simatos, the owner of the Homestyle Bakery and Black Lion Pub, had been drumming up support with table-tents at his business and a paper and online petition – which said Beaconsfield’s administration is “not consistent in their practices and procedures nor the explanation there of” -- asking people to come out and support him Monday night.

He said the problems came to a head when the Montreal Canadiens were still in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

“(The two-hour parking) bylaw has not been enforced in years,” Simatos said, adding he witnessed public security only ticketing cars parked in front of his building. “I was trying to drum up some hockey business…And on nights, when there was a hockey game, they started applying the bylaw.”

Simatos admits to going out and wiping off the chalk marks public security agents left on the parked cars’ tires, an offence he was caught and issued eight $100 tickets for.

“I was losing customers,” Simatos said. “And if there is a law and it’s applied in a discriminatory way, in my mind it’s not valid.”

Benedetti, however, said the public security agents were just doing their jobs.

“We had complaints from other merchants that there was nowhere to park in the evening,” the mayor said.

After the ticketing incident, Simatos wrote a letter to council expressing his dissatisfaction with the parking bylaw, which Benedetti said in part convinced council to make the change.

“As a result, we decided that he had a point, so we’re going to change the parking restrictions in the village,” he said.