Kamloops council to offer free downtown parking on Saturdays in December

Nov 21, 2017 | 3:47 PM

KAMLOOPS — Kamloops council has decided to give Christmas shoppers a break on parking downtown next month.

Council has agreed to offer free parking downtown on Saturdays during the month of December.

The move could cost the city as much as $10,000 in lost parking revenue, but is meant to encourage more shopping downtown.

At its regular meeting today, council debated dropping the maximum time limit to two hours.

Staff told council the normal daytime maximum is three hours, so having a special exception one month out of the year would be ill-advised.

Councillor Kathy Sinclair said there are other good reasons to keep the maximum at three hours.

“Three hours is sometimes not enough if you’re enjoying a brunch or a lunch and Christmas shopping. We have a very vibrant downtown and it’s easy to spend three hours downtown. We want to avoid employees parking at these meters, and I think that the three-hour limit will help avoid that.”