Monterey residents want permit parking system during Fairground events

Thousands of people are getting ready to descend on the Monterey Peninsula for another big event this weekend.

The Castroville Artichoke Food and Wine Festival said it has enough room to double attendance this year at the Monterey County Fairgrounds. But that’s not good news for everyone.

On Friday, NewsChannel 5 went to the neighborhood on the other side of North Fremont, where residents are saying event parking is becoming a problem.

Some residents were upset with parking issues during another Fairground event earlier this month and with the artichoke festival starting Saturday, some said they’re not looking forward to fighting for a spot to park.

“We’d like something done about it. Yes,” resident Ruth Hinkle said.

Ruth Hinkle said curbs packed with cars along Monterey’s residential streets are not uncommon in some of the more dense neighborhoods.

“You can’t find no parking spaces around here. They leave their orange peelings, broken bottles, paper plates, cups, everything out here and in fact one was urinating over my fence,” Hinkle said.

But Castroville Artichoke Food and Wine Festival planners say there’s no reason why people should be parking in neighborhoods.

“We also have a free shuttle service. So you can go park at MPC. It’s a $5 charge and you can get shuttled back and forth,” Castroville Artichoke Food and Wine Festival secretary and board member Kathryn Parish said.

The city said it works closely with the fairgrounds, ensuring there’s enough parking. Residents living closest to the grounds, have a special permitting system and signs go up during event season, to keep unwanted traffic out. Festival is becoming more popular and planners said last year they had to turn people away at the gates.

“We are taking over the arena area. So we now have the capacity of doing 18,000 people at once,” Parish said.

With attendance increasing at Monterey County Fairground events, residents living on the other side of Fremont said they’d like to have signs like this one as well.

“There’s just no parking places at all when they have something up at the fairgrounds,” resident Juanita Leakey said.

The city said the special permit process must be initiated by residents, and anyone can make that happen, if they start a petition. Monterey’s Parking Office said if residents want the same permitting system during special events, the petition would need to get enough signatures and then present that request to the city.