Pennsylvania Ave. Merchants Petition for 2-Hour Parking

You've just paid your dinner or bar tab, leave a decent tip, walk outside and suddenly you have to pay $22 more, thanks to a county parking ticket.

That happens more often than restaurant owners in the unit block of W.  Pennsylvania Ave. would like, because the block, home to restaurants like , and , has only one-hour parking in street parking spots.

Now, the block's merchants have started a petition to allow two-hour parking there, and county public works officials say they're looking into it, with a study due to be completed "sometime in April," spokesman David Fidler says.

While the Baltimore County Revenue Authority collects parking fees, the county's bureau of traffic engineering decides things like parking hours and time limits.

James Kahn, co-owner of S & J, says the restriction is costing the merchants valuable lunch hour traffic.

"They got a $22 ticket because they were five minutes late and they don't want to eat somewhere where they have to pay $22 extra for a meal," Kahn said.

The business owners put together a petition and submitted it to the county's bureau of traffic engineering in December. The bureau then launched the study.

"The reason that they are handling it this way is so that those who are petitioning for the change in the parking times know all the ramifications of this," Fidler said. "We're not quite sure that they understand the economic impact of increasing the parking times because it may help restaurants, it may not help restaurants. It may be a burden for other companies."

The restriction is all the more puzzling to merchants like Kahn because a block away, on the other side of York Road, drivers can find two-hour curb parking, a three-hour parking lot and an all-day lot. And across the street is a garage attached to Towson Commons. Some restaurants, including , San Sushi Too and Thai One On, have deals for limited free parking in that garage.

Changing the maximum on the block just makes sense and creates a win-win situation for the county, businesses and customers, according to some merchants.

"Let's say they buy two hours worth and they stay an hour and a half. The county gets two hours worth of parking," says , director of business development for Havana Road. "I don't know who would be losing in this. The patrons would do better, the merchants would do better and the county would do better."

The petition has the blessing of , executive director of the . She said other merchants on the block, including banks and lawyers, have signed on. She expressed frustration that the traffic engineering department even has to do a study, because every day there's business being lost.

"I feel (merchants) are coming into my office and they're venting at me because their customers are getting tickets," she said. "So I feel like the whipping boy because they don't have anyone else to say anything to right now."