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Jackie Colson-Miller

Jackie Colson-Miller, CIPS
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How To Be A Good Neighbor on Howard Avenue in South Tampa

I think most people could agree on what it means to be a good neighbor. Be considerate. Offer to help whenever you can. And, dont put up NO PARKING signs when there is a parking crisis in the neighborhood where you operate a very profitable business that relies on a local clientele.

In South Tampa, South Howard Avenue, or SOHO , is filled with restaurants, bars, and shopping. It is part of what is so special about South Tampa. They are local merchants, not big chains. Some of the merchants in the area are very good neighbors. When their stores are closed, their parking spots are available to neighboring restaurants for their evening business. It is the right thing to dothe neighborly thing.

One particular establishment, a small, locally owned grocery store, has a small strip center with 40 50 parking spaces. Next door, their neighboring restaurant is bursting at the seams after 9 pm. They could certainly use some help with their parking dilemma. Many of their customers wrongly assume it is safe to park in the unused grocery store lot, when the store is closed. The signs clearly say This lot is for T_owour customers only but, you dont have customers if the store is closed, right? If you park in their lot when the store is CLOSED, your car will be towed. It will cost $160 190 CASH to get your car back. I can do the Math40 spaces times $190 per night is plenty of CASH to the bad neighbor . It is certainly more profitable to tow cars than to allow your neighbors to use your unused parking spaces, but is it the right thing to do? The parking situation on South Howard is definitely heating up!

Since, as consumers, we all have choices about what to do with our Pa_rkingown cash, my choice is to never spend my money in establishments that choose not to be good neighbors , or share my value system. So, I wont be shopping in that grocery store on Howard Avenue and I hope, when you have the option to support your local merchants, you insist they are good neighbors or, shop elsewhere!

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This entry was posted on Monday, May 14th, 2007 at 11:18 am and is filed under South Tampa, Tampa. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “How To Be A Good Neighbor on Howard Avenue in South Tampa”

  1. Teri Turner says:
    May 14, 2007 at 3:54 pm

    Jackie,

    As you know, I found this out first hand when we got our cars towed away. I haven’t shopped at Whaley’s since and won’t again unless they decide to become a good neighbor. I think it would be great if you could put something together that summarizes the above situation and ask us to sign a petition and send a certified copy to the owner to make them aware of the business they are losing. Then, maybe they would finally decide to become a good neighbor.

    Teri Turner

  2. Mr. Bill says:
    May 15, 2007 at 1:04 pm

    We encourage people who have been towed to comment on our site http://www.sohotampa.com about their expensive experience.

    Only through this will we get any real solutions to the serious parking problem in Soho.

  3. Scott Moore says:
    May 15, 2007 at 3:19 pm

    Bravo for you for your comentary. As a small business owner on S. Howard Ave. I encourage all of us to be good neighbors. I also have a store in the downtown Orlando neighborhood of Thornton Park where parking lots wars have raged for the past two years. Neighbor against neighbor. The experience has been so bad that customers have abandoned the neighborhood and every business is suffering, destroying what was special about the neighborhood. We all rise or fall together. Thank you for adding your voice to this very serious issue.

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