New Salem Halloween Parking Rules Get City Council Approval

SALEM, MA — A fiercely debated proposal to create a permitting process for private parking lots that have operated illegally during Halloween season in Salem for years passed a preliminary vote of the City Council on Monday night.

The City Council voted 8-3 to require permitting and enforcement for private lots charging visitors to park within a half-mile radius of downtown Salem starting this Halloween season. The practice — which is not legal in the city — had gone on unregulated for decades with councilors divided on whether this ordinance brings some order to messy chaos or simply encourages more people to drive into Salem as public campaigns recommend visitors to use shuttle lots and public transportation.

The ordinance, which needed at least a two-thirds majority to pass, will go into effect this season if it passes a second vote in two weeks.

"All eyes are going to be on these lots," City Council President Patti Morsillo said in calling this ordinance "phase one" of coming up with a more permanent solution to the perennial holiday season parking conundrum. "All eyes are going to be on the regulation of these lots — if it works, what the complaints are. But, to me, being afraid to vote for something because you are afraid to fix it is not OK."

Several City Councilors who voted for the ordinance agreed that it is an imperfect solution to an expansive issue. The worry among some councilors was that not passing the ordinance now that the illegal lots were identified as a problem would mean shutting them all down next month, sending those cars skulking around the city looking for alternative spots and causing more traffic, and harming some of the small businesses and nonprofit groups that generate revenue from the seasonal parking at churches and other venues.

"We have had decades of history with this item and with this problem," Ward 6 Councilor Meg Riccardi said. "My biggest concern is that if we do not pass this (ordinance) this evening we will have 3,000 spots taken offline for the month of October, which seems like a nightmare.

"I don't need a traffic study to tell that's a large number and that will have a dramatic effect on our downtown and our traffic during this coming season."

Councilors Ty Hapworth, Caroline Watson-Felt and Alice Merkl voted against the ordinance.

"If we're going to change zoning we need to do it with data and facts," Hapworth said. "Beyond the process, I have some real issues with legitimizing parking as a commercial use downtown. For our tax base, climate goals and housing needs, we need to encourage more creative uses downtown than asphalt parking lots. October parking can be lucrative and we have concerns that legalizing this use will guide future development on these surface lots and discourage creative alternatives.

"Most importantly, this ordinance does nothing to address the biggest October problem that residents face — and that's soul-crushing traffic. As downtown residents ourselves, our family has always looked to embrace October insanity. But we still need to get our kids to soccer games, pick up groceries and get to appointments, and live our lives, in October.

"The message needs to be that unless you are a resident, or you have unique transportation needs, do not expect to park downtown in Salem in October because there will be no parking for visitors."

While the majority of councilors said the permits will help regulate the unavoidable flow of cars that do not follow the pleas to use alternative ways to get downtown during the spooky season, Watson-Felt called the ordinance a "short-sighted and ill-conceived solution" to the problem of ineffective deterrents to driving into Salem each fall.

"We have been looking the other way while an illegal use of land has been going on and getting worse for over 20 years," Watson-Felt said. "We have allowed, by looking the other way, to let this monkey barrel of issues get created. And now we're being asked to put something that's maybe going to just kind of fix it a little bit for now through in a three-month period of time. And I have a real problem with that.

"Because what it will do is tell people there are potentially more — because that's how it's going to sound — spots in the downtown."

Riccardi said that, if the ordinance ultimately does pass, enforcement of the permits must be a priority this holiday season.

"As a start, I think it makes sense because we have the staff there now and we have the enforcement there now," she said. "I totally feel for the neighbors who do not like to be next to these lots. Because there is ruckus at night, because the word 'urinating' came up a lot in my meetings, which is very unfortunate, and I wish the zoning amendment would fix that. It's not going to.

"Halloween in October in Salem is still going to be Halloween in October in Salem. But at least we're adding some regulations and some guidelines to what's really the wild, wild west right now."

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)