Letter to the Editor - Where's The Concern About Customers With Limited Mobility

I have been reading all this rhetoric about signs, merchant rights, arguments about who parks where, etc. etc. But nowhere do I see any concerns about the local customer. Surely our downtown merchants realize that by their actions, taking up the few parking spaces available, they are defeating their main purpose and that is to attract trade. I can't count the times I have gone downtown with specific stores in mind, only to find every parking space taken up, usually with commercial signage pasted on their windows.

As a customer with limited ability to walk long distances, I usually give up and go home. The side roads and back roads involve steep climbs or downhill walking that I cannot negotiate. I am quite certain there are many like me, who, as a consequence, patronize only the stores that have disability parking available. I suggest that certain areas of prime parking be restricted to limited time parking (green zones) thus giving prospective customers at least some chance of putting their vehicle in close proximity to the stores they wish to patronize.

Perhaps they can be patrolled, perhaps not, but at the very least it would provide a deterrent to those merchants or their employees capable of hiking a short distance to their place of business from using space that should be made available to prospective clientele.

We the local residents want to patronize you too. Why are you shutting us out?

Lucille Apcar 
Mariposa, CA