If you're caught overstaying your welcome around KGH or Prospera Place, it's soon going to hit you harder in the wallet. Kelowna Council agreed to do away with the $5 ticket for people who pay their parking fine within 24 hours of being ticketed in two hour parking zones. The new ticket policy will come into effect September 1. It only includes signed two hour parking limits and not downtown metered parking spots. At the present time, a $30 ticket is reduced to $5 if it is paid within 24 hours and to $10 if paid within seven days. Under the new policy the $30 ticket will be reduced just $5 to $25 if it is paid within seven days. "It is a real problem trying to enforce the two hour parking (around the hospital) because people will make the decision to park on the street and pay the $5 ticket the next day rather than park somewhere else," says City Clerk Stephen Fleming, who brought forth the changes. "It is frustrating for the neighbours who live there who have been writing to council asking if they can do away with this $5 ticket. That changes the economics." Fleming says the fine structure downtown will remain unchanged until council comes up with a new downtown parking fee and fine policy.
Meantime, council also agreed to significantly increase other fines. The biggest leap is the fine for contravening the noise bylaw, which goes up from $100 to $1,000. This includes loud parties, music, boats, animals and after hours construction sites. Fleming says at the current $100 level, bylaw officers are, in some cases, laughed out the door when they tell loud party goers of the $100 fine. "For example, with a lot of the noisy ones you go to a party and they will pass around a hat inside the party and try to give the officer $100 and say 'here, we've paid our fine now we can be as loud as we want for the rest of the day.'" He says at construction sites some companies will put bylaw fines into their budget because it is cheaper to pay a $100 fine if they are in line for large bonuses for finishing a job early. "The purpose isn't to bring in more revenue, the purpose is to make people comply with the bylaw." Fleming adds that Kelowna's Municipal Ticket fines are lower than most other communities in the Okanagan. He says West Kelowna's noise fine is also $1,000. Only Councillor Andre Blanleil had a problem with such a large increase. "A thousand dollars is a lot of money. It's zero to a thousand and I guess I struggle with that," says Blanleil. "A hundred bucks is a hundred bucks but a thousand dollars all of a sudden is a big part of someone's income. Some people can't afford a thousand dollars."
Other fine increases include:
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