have an agenda. Read this article — From the headline you would think that the street in Rochester, NY was becoming a ghost town. Merchants leaving right and left because of a "parking" problem. However there is only one, countem one store leaving because of parking, and a second is leaving, but says parking isn’t the reason. Other merchants say the street is great and are staying. (Wanna bet that their problem probably is that they don’t charge enough for on street parking.)
Its so obvious that this reporter had an agenda and then set about to find a story to fit it.
I got a call yesterday from a reporter at the Christian Science Monitor. He was doing a story on valet parking and was looking for some quotes to back up his thesis that it is a snooty, LA driven, concept that takes advantage of poor parkers who can’t afford to pay for parking.
Boy did he dial the wrong number. After about 20 minutes he was begging for help. He lives in LA and told me "horror" stories about parking in West Hollywood and Beverly Hills. I knew exactly the places he was complaining about and mentioned that there were great off street garages less than a block from where he was headed. His problem wasn’t that he wanted parking, but he wanted FREE parking.
He joked about valet parking at a local high end gym. Isn’t it ironic, he said. Well — lets see… people pay a grand a month to use the gym, shouldn’t they receive good service. By valet parking, they are able to spend more time on the elliptical machine or whatever, and why is it your business anyway? Sheesh.
I told him about valet parking at local shopping malls and supermarkets where the elderly and pregnant can have their parking issues solved quickly and for not a lot of money. How about cities that provide onstreet valet parking so they don’t have to build expensive parking structures that would be used only a few hours a night? The stories are endless.
The problem is simply that this guy thought "boy, valet parking is for stuck up rich people" and then sat out to prove it. He spent the last five minutes of the conversation pleading with me to tell him the name of someone he could quote who hated valet parking. I didn’t know any….
JVH
