“What happens is that when laundromat customers aren’t able to find sufficient parking spots, they move up to any empty park spots along Kerikeri Rd, including the disabled parks, which is unacceptable.”
“Once we had an elderly lady trip over and hurt herself when she was coming to our shop, all because a disability spot was filled up and she had to park elsewhere.”
Douglas said many times, she had to approach people to ask them to vacate. While some complied, others refused to leave and verbally abused her.
Kerikeri Puttsgreen Florist Ltd owner Wendy Putts agreed.
“Some of them have been overly aggressive and it’s been a while since I have stopped confronting such people.”
Aside from causing inconvenience to disabled customers, Putts said such an act was causing them to lose business.
“If all the parks are filled up with laundromat customers, then how will people who want to shop with us do so, without any parking space to spare? At this point we have just given up basically,” Putts said.
Both she and Douglas were finding it difficult to get an answer from the laundromat owners and the Far North District Council, which managed the parking spaces.
They believed reducing the parking duration and having the presence of a traffic warden regularly would help address the problem.
District council compliance manager Rochelle Dean said it had no evidence to suggest it was only the laundromat customers who were parking in the disabled car parks.
She said parking wardens regularly monitored disabled car parks in Kerikeri more than any other area in the district.
“There are more tickets for parking in the disabled bay outside the Procter Library than the disabled bay close to the laundromat on Kerikeri Rd.”
Dean clarified the parking in Kerikeri Rd was not assigned to any shops and anyone could park in any space (for the time permitted). Therefore, the laundromat users were not parking in other shops’ parking.
He also said the council had received no recent complaints regarding laundromat customers’ parking.
But he acknowledged business owners shared concerns last year when it was alleged laundromat customers were using parking at the rear of the business.
“This was a private carpark and not one for council to reinforce,” Dean said.
A Liquid Laundromat spokesperson acknowledged the “parking issue” and sympathised with the concerns of the community and business owners.
“We totally understand the frustration our neighbours and customers face. While we can ask our customers to park legally and not obstruct others ... We are an unattended laundromat so there is not much else we can do to intervene with some of the aggressive behaviour that has happened ...”
The spokesperson said to date they had filed a police report regarding the antisocial behaviour affecting neighbouring businesses.
And even before Christmas, they had met with some of their neighbouring business owners to address the issue.
The spokesperson said in their opinion, a large part of the frustration stemmed from the inadequate amount of parking available in the Kerikeri CBD.
Contrary to the council’s claim on parking wardens, they felt there was a “lack of policing or checking adherence” to the parking times.
The Advocate also had contacted the police and TAB to comment after their vehicles were seen parked at a disabled car park.
Both appreciated the public for bringing the issue to their attention.
A TAB spokesperson said they would be “reminding” their teams of the need to observe parking laws and the importance of keeping mobility parking spots available.
A police spokesperson said they apologised for the inconvenience and had communicated the issue to Kerikeri and Mid North staff.
“They will ensure that parking for attendance at non-urgent jobs will be in authorised spaces only.”
Avneesh Vincent is the crime and emergency services reporter at the Northern Advocate. He was previously at the Gisborne Herald as the arts and environment reporter and is passionate about covering stories that can make a difference. He joined NZME in July 2023.
