Council votes to suspend parking enforcement in BIAs

Nick Seebruch
Council votes to suspend parking enforcement in BIAs
Seaway News file photo.

CORNWALL, Ontario – The City of Cornwall has voted to suspend parking enforcement in Cornwall’s Downtown Business Improvement Area (DBIA) and Le Village Business Improvement Area (BIA).

The enforcement suspension will be from 4 p.m. starting tomorrow, Nov. 15.

This unexpected decision came after Centretown Coordinator Todd Lihou requested that parking restrictions be lifted in the BIAs, but only starting at 4 p.m. during the month of December.

“As you know, shopping local is a pillar of the small business community and making it as easy as possible to draw shoppers to our local stores is a mandate that we have embraced,” Lihou wrote in an email to Chris Rogers, the City’s Chief of Building and By-Law Enforcement. “We realize that this request will have an impact on the bottom life for the city, but in the interest of improving the shopping experience for local merchants and their customers, we believe this request has merit.”

Councillors thought so highly of this idea that they voted unanimously to suspend their rules and move to suspend enforcement right away.

Council also moved to ask administration for a report on what the impact would be to the City’s bottom line if they suspended parking enforcement in the BIAs all day everyday for the month of December.

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