Editor:
Re: Restaurateurs face struggle on Marine Drive, Oct. 21.
I am a resident of White Rock and I dine out five to eight times each week, and the only time I dine on Marine Drive is when a friend from elsewhere visits, wants fish and chips and can’t be persuaded to go to Burnaby or New West for great fish and chips.
Why? I simply refuse to pay the $3-$6-$9 cost of parking.
There are lots of restaurants in close proximity that provide an equal or better quality dining experience that have no parking surcharge, so why, when the experience doesn’t justify the price, would one spend the extra money to park?
Other places that I frequent for dining: Lonsdale Quay, West Vancouver, Fort Langley, Horseshoe Bay, Squamish, Bellingham-Fairview, La Conner, Anacortes…
What do they have in common? You’re right, free parking!
The business side of the coin is another matter.
No economist could make a business case for White Rock being a standalone ‘city’. It is a village that has only two income sources, taxes and parking fees, and no large business or industry.
Biggest employer: local government bureaucracy with a leadership stuck in the ’60s, spending obscene amounts of taxpayers’ money on, for example, a contaminated, inadequate water supply that they could obtain from Surrey for a third of the capital cost and maintain long-term for less than 40 per cent of what the taxpayers will be saddled with under the current plan.
Time for the ‘village’ to take advantage of the economy of scale and unite with Surrey.
Don MacKay, White Rock