THUNDER BAY – Parking meters appear to be the latest target of money-hungry thieves.
According to parking authority supervisor Jonathan Paske, the city has been hit with a rash of recent parking meter thefts, the perpetrator or perpetrators smashing the coin-holding heads off the devices and making away with them.
“Over the past several weeks we have been seeing meters being taken from the posts and stolen,” Paske said on Thursday.
“We’ve lost approximately 50 to 60 meters so far in the past several weeks.”
It’s a big concern, Paske added.
Each meter is worth about $800, on top of any lost revenue.
“There is obviously a replacement value for these, as they haven’t turned up yet. And it does cause a bit of a problem for those parking and for merchants, because now we have no way of controlling the parking down there,” Paske said.
“We have replaced some of them, but not all have been replaced as of yet.”
To combat the theft problem, Paske said they’ve taken to emptying the parking meters every day, to minimize the amount of money stored inside and lessen the attractiveness to would-be thieves. They’ve also stepped up security patrols.
Paske added they’ve also turned the matter over to police and have the co-operation of several businesses in both the Bay and Algoma and downtown north core, where the vast majority of the thefts have taken place. They're also considering welding the meters to the poles that hold them as another deterrent.
“We’re guessing that it’s happening at night, because no one sees anything. It would be very difficult not to be noticed, running away with a meter in the daytime,” he said
Paske said he’s also hopeful they may have caught a break, thanks to a well-placed video camera.
“We have just recently received some surveillance footage from a merchant in the downtown area that shows an individual taking a meter,” he said.
