GENTRY — After pleas from two Gentry business owners, the city council amended its proposed parking ordinance rather than pass it on its third and final reading and then passed the amended ordinance on three readings with a single vote.

Business owners Randy Bever and Wes Hogue pleaded with the council to keep the time limit on Main Street parking at two hours rather than extending it to four hours as in the proposed ordinance.

Both Bever and Hogue supported the other provisions in the proposed ordinance - removing the parking time limits on side streets crossing Main Street, between Main and the alleyways on the north and south side of Main Street, and restricting the parking of large trucks having a gross vehicle weight rating of 30,000 pounds or more in that same area of side streets to loading and unloading only.

Bever said his business - Bever’s Ace Hardware - depends largely on the availability of parking close to the store entrances. People come there, he said, because they don’twant to park far away or stand in lines at a checkout counter.

“If there’s not parking close by, some customers won’t stop,” Bever said. “They’ll just go on to someplace else.”

“Our main offenders are business owners and employees,” Hogue said, explaining that a four-hour limit would allow people to park all day if they move their car during lunch. He suggested changing the two-hour limit which has been in place for roughly 30 years would create division and conflict where none currently exists.

Following the discussion,council members considered tabling the proposed ordinance, up for its third and final reading, and sending it back to committee, but in the end chose to amend it and with rules suspended pass it on three readings with a single vote.

The new ordinance will take effect in approximately 30 days. It amends the current ordinance which restricts parking to two hours on Main Street in the Gentry business district and on side streets crossing Main - Nelson, Rust and Collins Avenues - between Main Street and the alleyways immediately north and south of Main.

News, Pages 8 on 05/04/2011