BRADENTON BEACH – Parking issues that caused police to write hundreds of tickets on Mother’s Day spilled over into Memorial Day weekend, police say.
Coquina Beach was chaos on the Sunday before Memorial Day, as well as the actual Monday holiday, with people choosing to form a new, illegal lane of parking that resulted in plenty of tickets being issued by Bradenton Beach police.
Dozens of drivers also parked illegally along the grassy area on the east side of Gulf Drive, resulting in numerous $75 dollar tickets.
“It’s been really busy, and people are parking wherever they want,” said Bradenton Beach Police Lt. Lenard Diaz, who was getting out of his vehicle with a large stack of tickets from illegal beach parking when The Sun spoke to him the day before Memorial Day.
The issue in both Bradenton Beach and Holmes Beach appears to be that many visitors would rather pay the $75 fine than try to find a legal parking space.
“I don’t care, it’s not much different than going to a theme park and paying a fortune for parking. As long as they’re not towing, we value our very limited family time more than the price of a ticket,” said Lindsay Harris, who was visiting Cortez Beach with her family from Lakeland. Holiday weekends are a favorite for Florida residents who are within driving distance from the beach.
“There were 122,045 cars between Friday, May 27 and Monday, May 30 that passed our license plate recognition devices in Holmes Beach,” said Holmes Beach Police Chief Bill Tokajer. “I don’t have the exact number of tickets our department gave out, but I can tell you that one of my sergeants gave out 60 tickets himself on Memorial Day. I can tell you that I personally gave out 22 tickets on Memorial Day Monday.”
Tokajer echoes the Bradenton Beach police, saying the biggest issue was people parking wherever they want to. The chief also noted that people said that as long as the department wasn’t towing, they had little problem paying the ticket and leaving their vehicles parked.
July Fourth is less than a month away, and police expect more of the same when the holiday arrives. Police will continue to ticket, so anyone planning a day trip by car is advised to arrive as early as possible to obtain a legal parking spot and leave fireworks at home, as they are not permitted on the Island.
No additional parking will be available in Bradenton Beach, but parking will be allowed at Anna Maria Elementary School for the holiday weekend.
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