Can you spare some parking change?

NEWS — “Can you spare a bit of change?”

“Sorry, I don’t have any.”

That sidewalk conversation between panhandlers and downtown shoppers has become more complicated since the City replaced parking meters with kiosks. As the City looks at bigger, user-friendly screens and a phone app to improve the usability of the kiosks, panhandling at the pay stations is the latest irritant.

Kamloops Central BIA manager Gay Pooler told the City’s Co-ordinated Enforcement Task Force today (Monday) the issue is becoming a concern for shoppers who are getting approached for “spare change” as they plug the new kiosks, which take more time than the old meters to buy parking time from.

Pooler raised the problem during a report from bylaw services supervisor John Ramsay on panhandling issues. “I do have a lot of people asking about that,” she said of the new phenomenon of being panhandled while paying for parking. “They’re a captive audience.”

Mayor Peter Milobar said it’s harder to tell panhandlers you don’t have any change when you’re standing at a parking kiosk with change in your hand, though the kiosks accept credit cards, too.

Pooler suggested parking kiosks be considered in the same vein as bank machines. It’s not illegal to panhandle in Kamloops but panhandling at ATMs isn’t allowed.

Lawson said the bylaws department will look into the possibility of making parking kiosks off-limits to panhandlers.

Foot patrols by bylaws officers and RCMP have been increased downtown to deal with panhandling, busking and other bylaw infractions. A bylaws officer will collect data on panhandlers during August for the information of the KCBIA, CAP Team and business owners.

A brochure is being developed with some dos and do nots for people approached by panhandlers. A firm but respectful “no” is recommended in answer to requests for money. Most panhandlers don’t become aggressive, it says.

The brochure also advises against giving panhandlers food as an alternative, as giving them anything is “inadvertently facilitating poverty” and panhandling “can lead to crime and lower the quality of life downtown.”