Arlington Hts. urged to ease up on employee parking

Arlington Heights parking policies are threatening downtown businesses, two company owners told the village board Monday.

Katie Van Egeren, owner of Vignettes of Arlington, said the village should look into policies of suburbs like Naperville that let business owners and employees park in off-street areas for as little as $5 a year.

And Keith Kottke, who owns The Riviera Restaurant, said he and his employees always park in the Vail Avenue garage but get ticketed there and cannot afford to buy passes for $30 a month per vehicle.

“We need to get business owners off the street,” said Van Egeren. “They move their cars and run errands then come back.”

Customers who want to make a quick stop at a business will go elsewhere if they are forced to park far away, she said.

Van Egeren said she took her concerns to the Arlington Heights Chamber of Commerce in 2005, and that group talked to the village, but no solution has been found.

Village Manager Bill Dixon agreed staff would look into how other municipalities handle this.

“The on-street parking is not for use by employers or employees or business owners; it's for customers,” he said.

Kottke said five customers have told him they will no longer come to his restaurant because they got tickets a few minutes after their parking time expired.

And he said the system of parking in the Vail Avenue garage seems aimed directly against a business like his. He and the part-time employees who also make deliveries get ticketed for leaving the garage then returning because they are accused of moving their vehicles just to avoid tickets, he said.

It would cost Kottke almost $1,000 a year to buy parking passes for three delivery vehicles for the garage, which he said he cannot. He said people are reacting to high gas prices by cutting back on purchases at fast food restaurants.