Description

At 730PM on Thursday, August 23, I attempted to shop at the Publix location bounded by Haynes Bridge and Hwy 9. Due to the Mayors Challenge Run, the City parking deck was closed.
As it was Thursday evening, a prime restaurant roaming night in downtown Alpharetta, and Food Truck Night, there were numerous vehicles in downtown, all seeking a place to park. Since the deck was closed, hundreds of cars ended up parked in the Publix shopping center lot, leaving less than 10 spaces for customers of the store.
When I inquired at Publix why they did not contact someone with the City, they enlightened me that the City of Alpharetta had already designated all of its officers to the Mayor’s Challenge, leaving none for off-duty patrol of the shopping center lot. Moreover, they stated that the City of Alpharetta would not allow Publix to hire other officers from other jurisdictions to cover the lot patrol. As a result, cars were parked all over the lot, some narrowing pass through lanes to one car width.
Point in fact, 2 City of Alpharetta patrol cars were parked in the back lot of Publix at the time – only adding to the reduction of parking capacity. As official vehicles, couldn’t they have parked somewhere else???
This evening appeared to be a most unfriendly approach to downtown businesses and citizens – cutting off parking access, not providing support to a local business that was taken advantage of – all for the Mayor’s Challenge. Perhaps someone can re-think these events in the future to insure that Alpharetta can support it citizens, its businesses, and its Mayor without negatively impacting anyone.