Keeping visitors away from the beach

Found this blog post in my Drafts. This happened about 3 years ago, but it really happened. The parking pass system rebooted while I was trying to buy a pass. The clock was 30 minutes off. I saw a car being towed through gridlocked traffic.

Here goes ......

Just came back from a whirlwind trip to the beach. My son Liam was having his pictures taken for promotional materials. I arrived the day before, and decided to spend some time at the beach. It didn't take long for things to go wrong. I appreciate their attention to safety. They just need to rethink customer relations.

Keeping Visitors Away From The Beach

- Establish onerous parking rates. At least $1.50/hour
- Don't maintain the machines that generate the parking receipts. Have them periodically reboot while the customer is attempting to purchase parking time.
- Set the clocks in the parking machines 30 minutes in the past. This way, you can sell 30 minutes of parking for the price of an hour of parking. This also creates a prime opportunity for towing cars in expired spaces.
- Configure the systems so that they only generate 1 hour parking passes, requiring the customer to return hourly to add more parking time.
- Tow the cars of violators during prime beach hours, causing traffic gridlock
- Establish rules for proper conduct at the beach, but don't post them anywhere
- If you choose to document rules, do so in an extremely cryptic manner. For example, to demark a zone in which swimmers should not enter the water, like near a pier, stick a red flag in the sand. Everyone knows people don't read signs with words :-)
- When the rules are transgressed, use a bullhorn to inform the offender, assuring public humiliation. Toss in phrases like "you need to watch your kids..you are not at Disney World"
- Don't enforce rules uniformly. This keep your visitors on their toes.