What did the signs mean?

[micky]

I used to lead hikes etc. on weekends, and when I didn't do it other people did, and we needed a good location to meet, near the Xway, both for people arriving and when we were all leaving. We carpooled so 3 out of 4 cars would be left there all day.

There was a quite small shopping center which always had a couple hundred empty spaces. Most of the parking was near the street, but some on the other 3 sides and I'd guess it totalled 300 spots with no more than 50 used at a time on weekends. No more than 150 used at any time during the week.

Eventually I found out indirectly that the owner of the property didn't like us doing this, so I would try to get people to have lunch or dinner at a restaurant there. (Some weekend days he drove by to check the center or the lot but he never left a note on a car.)

But the strange thing was the signs, along the outside border of the lot. "Cars must be parked between the lines" is all it said. And there were typical parking lot lines, white lines of the usual width on a black or dark grey pavement, spaced as they usually are in parking lots. It was easy to park between the lines and everyone did. I think we would have even were there no signs.

Nothing about illegal parkers being towed away.

What could he have wanted when he wrote those signs?

Have you ever seen signs like that?

[notbob]

Do you know for a fact your car was towed?

I'd call the police and file a stolen vehicle report. That should bring things to a head, tout de suite. ;)

nb

[trader_4]

For people to park between the lines and not just anywhere.

I can't recall seeing any. Typically they do have signs that address what you're doing though, which is using their business lot for a commuter lot. Signs that say something to the effect that parking is only for people while visiting these stores. And if you park there, then wander off to go hiking, or even wander off to walk across the street to some other stores, don't be surprised if you get towed. Buying a doughnut and then leaving for 3 hours, isn't a defense. And many lots have agreements with the towing company, so the towing guys have spotters there, waiting to see you leave. With no signage, you might be alright, but I wouldn't bet on it. I'd bet the default position is that private lots like that are for reasonable use while visiting the businesses there, even if it's not stated explicitly.

[gfretwell]

They are just trying to limit the number of people who park at an angle across 2 spaces so nobody can park next to them (banging up their car).

[Frank]

Plenty of people park over the lines and you don't want to park within the lines around them so they may be in effect hogging three spaces.

I would not like you parking in my lot either and parkers should think about this and park away from the businesses.

[Mayhem]

Find a Sears or Kmart parking lot. They're always empty and there's no one left at the stores that give a shit.

[trader_4]

I was at Sears last week, needed a wrench, early evening and boy was it dead. I mean really, really devoid of customers. I do hope they survive though. K Mart which they merged with, that's an even bigger mess, but at least they seem to have some customers. Sears, their website is the worst I've seen. If you go on there and search for "18mm metric wrench", it comes back with a hit on every word independently. So, you have 500 items, with sockets, SAE wrenches, and the kitchen sink all thrown in together. And then, by default, the website shows you all the crap they are selling from all kinds of vendors, not just Sears. At least that you can filter down to just Sears. But what an image for customers. It looks more like a flea market than Sears.

It's another great business story. How Sears was there long before competitors like Walmart even existed. Yet Walmart has become hugely successful and Sears is hurting badly. Unfortunately it may be too late to save. No sign that they are even trying....

[bob haller]

The fellow who owns controlling interest in saears has gotten wealth by not investing any $ in sears or kmart store. KMarts look like a flea market, broken fixtures with scratched glass cases cracked floors etc.

note you never see any sears service trucks anymore.

eddie lampert is setting nthe stage to break up what remains and sell it off piecemeal.

actually very sad. sears has ome stores half renovatedb for many years when the orders came stop all renovations.

sears owns most of it stores real estate, even in malls.

eddie had planned to sell it off for big bucks but the fiancial collapse occured, and another is coming soon......

sears where america used to shop:(

[micky]

Oh, no. No one was ever towed. I'm sorry I left that out.

[Scott Lurndal]

Methinks your "search foo" is lacking. I tried "18mm metric wrench" on

and the top 8 results were, guess it, 18mm metric wrenches.

Now the results are presented using flash, which I detest, but at least they were accurate.

(note: I included the quotation marks in the query string)

"18mm metric wrench"

[micky]

I guess you're right. It must have worked because I've never seen anyone do that there. (I still drive by once a week or so, and also the radiology clinic is there. I should be done with them after one or two more visits.)

When I first heard he wasnt' happy, I looked again, but there was no good spot. One of the features of this place was, ironically, that people could get food while waiting for the car-pools to leave, and small** groups from the day trip could buy a meal when they got back. Neither happened that often, but over the years it did happen a few times.

**Large groups could too, but it never happened that more than 6 stayed. We had brought lunch and eaten it on the trail.

At first I had people park as far from the stores as possible, but after I got scared of being towed (which woudn't have happened until he first put up new signs. but I didnt' want to goad him into doing that) I had people park rather near the restaurant, but in the third row (the last row in that section.)

He was in his 60's or 70's and had several properties in the area. Maybe his complaining was just grumbling, since he knew there was plenty of parking there. I guess he'd be in his 90's now. I forget his name, so I don't know if he's actively running the properties or not.

[Tony Hwang]

You really had to ask? Come on.

[rbowman]

My favorite sign was in a supermarket parking lot in Elko, NV that said 'no eighteen wheelers'. The parking lot was almost empty when I stopped for groceries but a minimum wage bagger decided to give me a hard time, ran out, and pointed to the sign. I had a set of doubles, so i just pointed to the truck and said 'Start counting, Sparky. This is a twenty two wheeler.'

Some businesses like WallyWorld and the Cabela mothership in Nebraska had the epiphany that truckers have money and tend to spend it so were more accommodating. Others obviously spend a lot of time laying out parking lots that were truck unfriendly. Some of them even laid out loading docks that were truck unfriendly. I imagine some architect figured if it worked for his Prius it was all good.

[rbowman]

I've seen some parking lot striping jobs where you'd have to be damn good to not take two spaces if you're driving an ark, excuse me, a SUV. There's a lot of that around here with the parking lot laid out for Civics in a town where anything smaller than a F350 dually is considered a compact.

[rbowman]

Won't work here. The KMart morphed into a Cabela's when nobody was looking. Funny, the KMart seemed to poison the neighboring businesses. Now that there's a magnet, everybody wants to build in that center.

[rbowman]

When I was a kid, the Montgomery Ward catalog was what you curled up with, if only to peruse the lingerie section. There was a regional distribution center about 8 miles away so you could call your order in and pick it up in a couple of hours.

Somewhere along the way Wards took a wrong turn although the name lives on as an internet retailer. It's too bad. They even survived near nationalization by FDR.

[Snuffy "Hub Cap" McKinney]

Why are you asking here? Ask the man.

[Jerry.Tan]

NO VEHICLES MAY EVER BE PARKED IN THIS PARKING LOT!

[micky]

ROFL.

[Senator Pocketstuffer]

I am not a truck driver nor do I play one on TV but...here in the mid-west, Walmart has the absolute worst parking lot entrances. I can't imagine driving a truck/trailer through a Walmart obstacle course to get to the receiving docks.

But since it's Walmart we're talking about, the design job obviously went to the cheapest bidder.