Parking meters in Brookdale? No way, says petition local barber

BLOOMFIELD, NJ — A longtime Brookdale barber thinks he may see the writing on the wall and has started a petition campaign to send out his own message.

Fred Ardizzone, owner of Brookdale Barber Shop, has brought to the attention of other business owners and their customers, in the most-northern section of Broad Street, that the Bloomfield Parking Authority has recently initiated a survey of the parking needs along the sidewalks of this oasis of meterless parking. His message: No parking meters here.

“There was a girl on Tuesday,” he said Friday, Dec. 9. “We saw her walking through the neighborhood writing things down. I asked her what was she doing and she said a parking-meter study. She came into the barbershop and had coffee. She said she was just a worker and went her way.”

Ardizzone said the Brookdale business community has been here before. Years ago, there was interest to install meters but the businesses pushed back. Result: no meters.

“What is the reason for coming to Brookdale to put meters here except for money,” he said while cutting a customer’s hair. “Take money out of the equation: What is the reason they want to put meters here? There’s no problem here. It’s not like the center with congestion. It’s a sleepy neighborhood once you cross Bay Avenue.”

All other areas of town with parking meters have municipal parking lots, he said, while the Brookdale section has no meters and no municipal lots and everyone gets along fine.

According to Ardizzone, there are four private parking lots in the area and anyone can use them. He has one himself that can accommodate 30 cars. Any customer to the business area can park there, he said, and it is the same thing for the other private lots in the area.

“This is a friendly neighborhood,” he said.
But after seeing and speaking with the person taking the survey, Ardizzone retrieved petitions from a cabinet in his shop. They were from the last meter fight, he said.

“This petition has been given to other stores in the area,” he said. “Some of the petitions haven’t come back yet. I don’t know how many signatures will be on them. If they want to put something up here, have them put in nice trees.”
He said there were four reasons why Brookdale businesses do not need parking meters. He clicked them off, enumerating them.

“One, there has been a two-hour limit on northern Broad Street for many years,” he said. “Two, meters would discourage prospective customers from patronizing area businesses. Three, meters would induce customers to compete for a limited number of free parking spaces in private off-street lots resulting in citizen disputes, traffic congestion, motor-vehicle accidents, and security guards monitoring of the parking lots. And four, meters would have a negative effect on commerce in the northern business district where there are already several vacant store fronts.”

Giving this last reason, he turned from a head of hair and pointed out the window.

Anne Prince, the operations manager for the BPA, said in a telephone interview Saturday, Dec. 10, that the parking study is being conducted by Desmond Project Management.

“It’s an overall assessment of parking needs,” she said. “The study just started for the entire township. It’s for parking and parking options; garages. It should be completed by the end of February.”

Prince said the results would be made public and that there will be no parking in front of residences.

“It is just concerned with business parking,” she said. “The results will go to the mayor and council for their decision on what to do or not do.”

The BPA recently concluded two pilot programs for a new type of parking meter. The pilot program used seven meters along Washington Street and later, the same seven meters were placed on Broad Street near Bloomfield College.

These new meters are equipped with cameras that record the license plate of a car when it pulls in. The meter can produce a ticket, automatically, when time expires. This new type of meter also has a camera pointed toward the sidewalk for what Prince has called “merchant security” but what surveyed residents have called “Big Brother.”

“There’s been no decision,” Prince said. “We’re waiting for the parking study to end. The results are a combination of the two pilot programs and the survey.”
When contacted on Tuesday, Dec. 13, Ardizzone said he has the utmost respect for the work that Prince is doing and means no disrespect by initiating a petition.

“I just want to do what’s right for our people,” he said. “There must be 500 names on these petitions. I’ve been standing here for 51 years.”