If You Pay For the Zoo, Then Take Some Cheap Parking

A proposal has been laid out that would give discounts on things like parking or admission at the city’s major tax-funded attractions to city residents. For instance, the Zoo would offer discounted parking to all city residents…except for those that live close enough to walk, who get nothing we guess. Maybe we can give them a balloon with a zebra on it or something?

Gloria Wessels recently suggested that four of the five institutions funded by the zoo-museum district offer discounts on parking, concessions and special exhibits to visitors who live in the taxing district. If necessary, those discounts could be funded through price increases for visitors who live outside the district, she said.

“I’d like to see city and county residents get a break,” said Wessels, one of four city residents on the district’s eight-member board. “And I think it would make people (from outside the district) more aware of what city and county taxpayers provide.”

The zoo, of course, hates the idea. Not because they don’t want to give tax-payers a break, but because they don’t want to have to check your ID.

Jeffrey Bonner, the zoo’s president and chief executive, said he didn’t think it was practical to offer district residents a discount for parking, which costs $12, because it would take too much time for lot attendants to check drivers licenses for proof of residency.

“We already have cars lined up more than 100 deep,” he said.

…but you have time to take their money?

The upshot here is that for the five tax-funded attractions in town, you might, if passed, be able to get a slight discount on a few things the next time you go to one of these things, which is, lets be honest, close to never. Guys that tip $5’s instead of $1’s at the Hustler Club get better perks than this. Free parking is nice guys, but if you want to keep people in the city, you need to be a little more like the Hustler Club and find a way to give us whatever the equivalent of a handjob in a gross East-Side bathroom stall next to a guy doing coke is. …Maybe that’s free Zoo parking and a free ice cream cone.

City living: Ever so slightly more worth the crime, horrible schools and taxes!

via STLToday

city  museum  taxes  zoo