[IN2DEEP]

Originally Posted by jorluivil

There's mixed information on this, some of the Booth attendants say It's permanent but some of the notices that are posted say It's for the summer months. Regardless, $20 is a shit load of money to pay for parking. I'll be calling the city of RB Monday and ask if you have to be a resident to get on of their meter parking permits, if It's available to the general public I'll probably pay to get one and park outside in the street, if you get there early enough you can Park right across from the entrance to the parking lot. The bad thing is that you'll have to get yourself setup outside or just pay the $2 each to get in/out when launching/landing. I heard that the meter parking permit is $80 so it'll only take 4 trips to break even.

Originally Posted by ol'skool

Go a little further north, park over by the Portofino and wheel it over to the launch...sneaky but so far it's worked for me.

Originally Posted by Fiskadoro

There you go. I always buy a package of Squid from the pier and get a validation from them. I tend to fish long hours often all day, and with a validation from the pier, I can fish all day for a minimum fee, so I never even mention the hand launch, just hand them the validation and pay at the reduced rate.

So what exactly has changed?

The hand launch exception was originally only for people coming in launching then storing their vehicle outside the lot.

Say you had a slip in the marina and wanted to launch a dingy or small craft. You could launch it there then park in your own marina's lot. The idea being that the launch has to have public access and you should be able to use it without having to pay for parking if you do not actually park there in the lot. Technically though you had to be in and out in something like 15 minutes to get the reduced rate. If you stayed longer then the allowed time you then had to pay for parking. To get around the time limit rules we would get validations from the pier then park in the lot and then would only have to pay a reduced fee. If they no longer allow validations that would be a huge deal, but if they have been letting you park and just charging the hand launch fee without a validation count your lucky stars because they have been letting it slide.

Back over a decade ago I went seabass fishing got there before the pier opened fished all day then got back too late to get a validation form the pier. Without the validation I would of then owed something like $20 so I then went to Naja's drank some beer and got the validation from them. I've heard that they can no longer give them and that bars and restaurants can't give them out any more. I would imagine the pier still can because guys that go out on boats are there all day and making their customers pay full price would cut into their business.

Another way around it was the north entrance. It used to be that launch was free and that access was open 24 hours a day. They then decided to charge a fee, put in a electric gate, and you had to pay a few bucks to get to the launch. Sometimes the gate didn't work, and people kept breaking the gate arm to get in, so they closed that entrance now only allow vehicle access from the main lot, through the main gate. That said last I checked there is no fence just a single post blocking vehicles so you can still bring your yak in on a cart from that side, and no-one's going to bother you if wheel in your Kayak from Portofina way and launch for free.

Thanks for your insight and knowledge
Looks like some of you have given this a lot of thought already
Question: Where off of Portofina Way can you park and not get ticketed or towed away?