Sarasota County sees increase in parking tickets issued

According to Sarasota County records of weekly parking violations, by location, from Feb. 1 to May 1, there has been a rise in ticket distribution.

From Feb. 1 to Feb. 28, a total of 1,521 parking tickets were issued. From April 4 to May 1, there were 1,862 violations, a 341-ticket increase.

City Parking Manager Mark Lyons told the Sarasota Observer that there is a citywide focus to ensure ordinances are properly followed. The City Commission voted to repeal the city’s paid parking program — and to remove downtown parking meters — March 5.

“It’s not about increasing tickets,” said Lyons. “Meters are designed to create a turnover in parking spaces, and if they are gone, we have to do that in some other way — through enforcement.”

Currently, most downtown parking spots consist of two-hour parking with parking enforcement occurring from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

There are some three-hour parking spaces, however, that exist on St. Armands Circle, Hillview Street, along the Sarasota bayfront near Marina Jack and Burns Court that are enforced from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

The Sarasota City Commission voted in March to make all downtown parking enforcement hours uniform: from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. According to Lyons, the new time span will be put into effect once signs reflecting the change are erected in the coming weeks.

“The goal is that we are fairly applying parking tickets throughout the city,” said Lyons.

Overall, the commission approved $2,550 worth of existing signs to be modified and 170 new signs to be installed.

“We have increased the number of employees on staff from what we previously had a month after the City Commission repealed the paid parking system,” says Lyons, “which sort of brought our focus in a different manner.”

Click here to view Sarasota parking violations.