By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
A long line began forming at 9 a.m. Monday in front of the former Sea Isle City public school.
“It was pretty funny, because it looked like people were camping out for concert tickets,” City Clerk Shannon Romano wryly observed.
Parking permits, not concert tickets, were the hot commodity in this case.
Sea Isle began selling 400 seasonal parking permits Monday on a first come, first served basis. By 12:30 p.m., more than half of them were gone.
“Within this week, we’ll probably sell out,” Romano said.
Parking permits save motorists from the headache of fumbling for cash or coins to feed the meters or parking kiosks. They also save motorists from the worry of getting a parking ticket.
The city also sells an unlimited number of weekly parking permits throughout the summer tourism season.
This summer, the seasonal and weekly permits are going to cost more. The city raised the price this year from $200 to $250 for the seasonal permits and from $30 to $50 for the weeklies.
The price increase was approved before the coronavirus pandemic struck. Originally, the parking permits were supposed to go on sale May 1, but the city pushed back the date to May 11 to give people more time to buy them during the pandemic.
Maggie Sgalio, a local real estate agent, was among the people who showed up to buy parking permits on Monday. She, like everyone else, was required to wear a face covering to enter the old school as a precaution against the coronavirus.
Sgalio said she was buying two parking permits, one for herself and the other for a woman who had bought a condominium from her.
“I can park in the street next to my office and not have to worry about putting money in the meter. I can park there all day,” Sgalio noted of the advantages of having a parking permit.
