Locked Parkade

The fact that the downtown Vernon parkade needs to be locked at night (and all day Sundays) is a sign of a problem the city hasn't been able to address....criminal activity and homelessness.

Do other cities lock their parkades--imprisoning the parked cars whose owners dashed in and parked, and then were delayed--without reading the signs?

Or have other cities managed to defeat the criminal activity and homelessness issues?

The answer may be a resounding "no" to both questions.

Let's look at Kelowna's myriad parkades.

The website states: 

For longer term parking, park in a parkade or off-street lot.

Parking is not permitted on any downtown street between the hours of 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. due to street cleaning and snow removal. Please park in a parkade or off-street lot if you may be leaving your vehicle overnight.

...which would indicate parkades are not closed/locked early, but I may be wrong.
Sure, some of their parkades close at 6 p.m., but those aren't in commercial/business zones.

Evidenced is the downtown (similar to Vernon's location) Ellis and Lawrence Streets parkade:  open Monday to Friday 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Plenty of time to conduct business and get out of late meetings at the office...

So when does downtown Vernon's lone parkade close?

Are you sitting down?
8 p.m.

8 p.m. ?  Really?
And 7 p.m. on Saturdays?

How about businesspeople whose afterwork meetings delay their return?
Everyone's likely heard of the 21st Century trend of longer workplace hours.

Everyone but the Vernon parkade manager, anyway!

Tiny sign (at the right side of parkade entrance) in downtown Vernon.

There are other signs, in other parts of the world, that are infinitely more noticeable:

The parkade sign of the future?

Kia would've said:  "It'd be a smaller sign if they included only the bodily functions that are allowed."



Oh, and speaking of the Vernon downtown parkade, I'm reminded of a conversation several years ago with a nearby business owner (who--for obvious reasons--will remain anonymous).

He told me "that parkade is always empty, so I contacted Vernon city hall and said I'd like to rent 4 parking spaces on a monthly basis, but I could only afford half price (their normally exorbitant rate).
It'd be win/win for both the City and me...the parkade would have some revenue, versus being empty now during the workday, and I'd have reasonably-priced parking for my customers."

You guessed it.
The City told him "No."

Seems the City of Vernon would rather have an empty parkade during workdays!