Business owners agree parking meters do more harm

Business owners have a lot of complaints about the high-tech parking meters on Jos. Campau, and city officials are deciding whether to continue its contract with the meter company or end it.

By Charles Sercombe
The verdict is in about the city’s controversial parking meters.
They have to go, or be swapped out for different meters, or else the city must extend the current policy for free parking.
That was the hodgepodge of opinions about the city’s parking meters on Jos. Campau, which, from the moment they were installed and up and running, have had people complaining about them.
In other words, welcome to Hamtramck.
But Hamtramck is not alone in its beef about these high-tech meters, installed by Municipal Parking Services.
The City of Royal Oak also contracted with the company, and then ended up yanking the meters out after numerous complaints about how the meters chased business customers away because they are hard to use, or that the app does not work, or that they are not providing enough time for people to get out of their vehicle and actively feed the meter.
There were also many complaints from people who received tickets despite paying to park.
All of those complaints were echoed here in Hamtramck.
Hamtramck is now at a crossroad. The city’s five-year contract with the company is about to come to an end in July. So it’s decision time for the city council on whether to continue contracting with the company, possibly negotiating for better terms, or else tell the company to come and collect the meters and get out of town.
If the city were to end its contract with the meter company, it would represent a loss of about $200,000 in revenue per year. City officials are already struggling in how to deal with the loss of $1.4 million a year from Wayne County operating its jail here.
At a recent town hall meeting about the parking meters, residents and business owners packed the city council chambers and all of them complained about the meters.
“I’d like to see no meters,” said Dan Tatarian, the owner of Showtime Clothing Jos. Campau at Edwin. “I’d like to see an environment for people to go shopping and enjoy their shopping experience.”
Instead, Tatarian said, he’s lost about 200 customers because of the difficulty they experienced with the parking meters.
“A lot of my customers have gotten tickets, and they’re not coming back,” he said.
Co-owner of the Florian East Brewery, Milo Madole, echoed what a number of other business owners on Jos. Campau have complained about: that it’s unfair to have parking meters on Jos. Campau and not in other business districts in the city.
“These meters are a specific tax on the businesses on Jos. Campau,” Madole said. “We’re the only ones who have to deal with this.”
City Councilmembers Khalil Refai, Abu Musa and Mohammed Alsomiri, who are the council’s sub-committee to review the meter contract, hosted the event.
Refai stressed that a final decision about the meters will be based on “What you guys want.”
Following opening remarks at the meeting, a city administrator ran through some statistics about the city’s 292 meters, such as:
• There are 66 no parking zones, which includes spaces like crosswalks, in front of fire hydrants and bus stops.
• About 10 people each day park in prohibited spaces, which are painted yellow.
• 50-60 percent of the meters are used every day.
• The percentage of people who used the meters and got a ticket was 5.1 percent in 2022; 3.99 percent in 2023; and 3.4 percent in 2024.
Councilmember Refai said there will be more meetings in the near future about the meters.
Posted Feb. 21, 2025