Downtown robbery
I was robbed yesterday. The perp didn’t have a gun or a knife, but a piece of pavement roughly the size of my vehicle in good proximity to where I needed to go, Brookfield Place, for a spa treatment. A little “me” time. A semi-pricey girlie episode. You get the idea.
My favourite esthetician has moved locations. She used to be in Yorkville. But she was the reason I went there and when she moved to Front Street, I followed, and this is only the second time I’ve been to see her there. The first time, I took the subway. Cost: about $6. This time I decided to drive and chose a parking lot a couple of blocks away to force myself to walk a little further. Besides, I was a bit early, and I don’t like to rush my pal by sitting in the waiting room, bored out of my mind.
So I parked and - dopey me! - I assumed that it was the same underground parking gouge - I mean garage - that I’m used to in this city; $3 per half hour or less, blah blah. I returned to my vehicle less than an hour later and used my credit card to exit, as I had when I entered. The little machine spit out my receipt. Smack me in the face with a wet mackerel: $25. Twenty-five dollars! For less than an hour! Even by Toronto standards, that is absolutely outrageous.
Depending on where we tape my parts for the TV show Whatever Happened To, I can sometimes pay up to $16 to park for the 90 minutes or so. That’s ridiculous. But $25 for under an hour is just plain old sick and I don’t mean that in the new, hip way the kids are using the word “sick.” I mean ill, ailing, disgusting. Greed is alive and well and putting its grubby hand in my pocket.
May 27th, 2008 at 11:01 am
Thats Front street for ya! I work in the area and occasionally have to drive in. My tip: park at the manned-booth’d parking lots so you can verify the cost prior to leaving. This way, you don’t feel you must pay such an outrageous price after the fact.
Parking in Toronto is outlandish! I was in Washington D.C. over the weekend. We ate on the waterfront, (parked for $1.50 for 2 hours) and then circled the capital area (around Pennsylvania Ave) when we found a parking spot for free on the street! We looked for about 10 minutes.
Try getting away with that around here…even on the weekends we get charged in the downtown core. How ridiculous is that??