Camden businesses decry new parking fees and enforcement
Although implementing paid parking in Camden is projected to bring in about $90,000 in revenue for the midcoast town, some businesses say they’re seeing a negative impact on customers and employees.
The town did a trial run with paid parking in 2022, but this is the first year it’s running at the public landing for the full season, from May 1 to October 31. At the same time, the town has also reintroduced year-round 2-hour parking limits downtown for the first time since 2020.
At $2 per hour and a maximum stay of 4 hours, the new paid parking is projected to raise around $90,000 this year, which Camden Town Manager Audra Caler says will be used to fund improvements downtown.
“It’s going to be something that we can use to offset the cost of maintaining our road infrastructure and doing projects, like improving our pedestrian infrastructure,” Caler said.
Despite that goal, some businesses say the paid parking, combined with strict parking enforcement, have impacted business and contributed to a slower start to the summer season.
“It’s not a problem to do what they did — it’s a problem to do it so early, before the season gets going,” said Ben Toussaint, one of the owners of La Cave, a bistro by the town landing.
Although La Cave has seen decent support since it opened in May, Toussaint and other store owners by the landing feel people are “avoiding Camden” because of the new parking rules.
Business has definitely been slower this year, said Donalyn Hammett, manager at Cotton Garden of Camden.
The new paid parking in Camden covers 93 spaces at the public landing, running from May through the end October. Credit: Braeden Waddell / BDN
While she can’t can’t put a number to the impact on sales this early in the season, she said the fight to find a free space in town impacts everyone.
“We have a lot of older couples that come that are in pretty good shape, but they’re not gonna walk a mile to get to the downtown area,” Hammett said. “They might get frustrated and just say, ‘you know what, let’s go to Belfast’ or something.”
The new rules are also having a noticeable impact on business from local customers, said Alan Smith, general manager at Blaze Camden restaurant.
“Locals won’t come down here, if it comes to paying to park,” Smith said. “They’re not gonna come all the way down here and pay to park to eat at a local restaurant, which hurts our business.”
It’s not just customers feeling the sting either, employees are struggling to adapt to the two hour parking limits in particular, businesses said.
Last year, workers at Blaze Camden got some leeway to finish serving customers before going out to move their car, but this year several employees have been ticketed exactly at the two hour mark, the general manager said.
“It’s impacting all my employees,” Smith said. “Last year was totally different.”
The town manager said while she understands frustrations about the new rules, free parking and lax enforcement on two hour spaces leads to more congestion, results in fewer available parking spots and has a number of hidden costs both for businesses and for the town. She wants less space downtown dedicated to parking, and for her that starts with less free parking with no time limits.
“It’s consumed more land with parking that could be used for other purposes, things like affordable housing or public green space,” Caler said. “We all pay for free parking, we just don’t pay for it during the trip.”
Only 93 of Camden’s roughly 1,400 downtown parking spaces are currently paid, Caler said, although she recognizes that the public landing and nearby businesses are a major draw for tourists. She said there are still plenty of free options available to full time workers if they’re willing to walk a bit further.
In the long term, Caler wants the town to consider implementing paid parking more broadly, following in the footsteps of communities in Maine like Bar Harbor as well as other urban areas throughout the country.
Downtown employees said they understand the town benefits from parking revenue, but disagree on how it should be implemented.
“If they’re gonna have paid parking, it should be minimal, not a moneymaker for the city,” Hammett at Cotton Garden said.
Part of the fun of going to Maine is getting away from rules and restrictions tourists might have back home, customers told Bren Grigo, an artist and employee at Small Wonder Gallery & Frameshop. They said paid parking is like “bringing in the city into the small town experience” they’ve come to expect in Camden.
“They want to come to Maine because of the charm, because of the small towns,” Grigo said. “Now, they’re seeing something happening where it doesn’t feel so smalltown-ish to them anymore.”
BDN writer Sarah Walker Caroncontributed to this story.