By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
Call it the power of the parking permit.
Every year there is a big rush to buy Sea Isle City’s ultra-popular summer parking permits that save motorists from the hassle of fumbling for coins or cash at the meters or kiosks.
By the time the 2022 permits went on sale 9 a.m. Friday at Sea Isle’s Community Lodge, a long line of people waiting on the sidewalk had wrapped three-quarters of the way around the building.
“It was crazy,” City Clerk Shannon Romano said of the heavy turnout.
Demand was so heavy that Mayor Leonard Desiderio issued an executive order Friday increasing the number of parking permits up for sale this season from 400 to 500.
“Some people waiting in line today just would not have gotten them,” Romano said of the original allotment of 400 permits.
Altogether, 438 permits were sold on the first day, Romano said. The rest of them will go on sale starting 9 a.m. Monday at the Clerk’s Office on the second floor of City Hall.
Costing $250 each, the permits can be used for both the metered spaces and municipal parking lots around town. They save motorists from the headache of searching for loose change to plug the meters and parking kiosks – and from the worry of getting a ticket.
Romano said the high demand for the permits each year reflects the growing popularity of Sea Isle as a shore vacation resort.
Parking is at a premium during Sea Isle’s bustling summer tourism season, making the permits a highly coveted prize.
Normally, high demand for the parking permits is an indication that Sea Isle is primed for a strong summer season – just like with the robust sale of beach tags.
Sea Isle charges for parking from May 15 to Labor Day. The city also sells weekly parking permits at $50 each. There are no limits on the number of weekly permits sold throughout the year. A weekly permit is limited to only one vehicle and is not transferrable.
In 2018, Desiderio issued another executive order increasing the number of seasonal parking permits that were sold during that summer from 300 to 400. Now, the number has jumped from 400 to 500.
According to city regulations, the permits must be hung on the rear-view mirror. They allow drivers to park continuously, including overnight, in any metered space or at any metered city parking lot. The city forbids the parking permits from being resold.
Parking permits can be registered to a maximum of three vehicles. However, only one vehicle at a time may use the permit.
Complete information about the three vehicles, including the make, model and license plate number, are required in order to use the parking permit.
The requirement limiting the parking permits to three vehicles took effect in 2021. It represented a major shift in the city’s policies regulating the permits. Previously, the permits were transferrable, allowing friends or family members to share them for different vehicles.
However, confusion arose when a vehicle that supposedly could use the transferrable permits was given a parking ticket by police. Police would ticket the vehicle if it was parked at an expired meter and did not have a parking permit on display.
When the owners of those vehicles would show up in municipal court to dispute the tickets, they would claim that they were one of the people who were allowed to use the transferrable parking permit, city officials said.
