{"id":2450331,"date":"2019-10-24T22:00:01","date_gmt":"2019-10-25T04:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/downtown-valet-service-characterized-as-elitist-by-aspens-elected-officials\/"},"modified":"2019-10-24T22:00:01","modified_gmt":"2019-10-25T04:00:01","slug":"downtown-valet-service-characterized-as-elitist-by-aspens-elected-officials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/downtown-valet-service-characterized-as-elitist-by-aspens-elected-officials\/","title":{"rendered":"Downtown valet service characterized as \u2018elitist\u2019 by Aspen\u2019s elected officials"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Calling it too elitist to have parking spaces reserved for valet parking at the base of the gondola in downtown Aspen, elected officials want to park the operation somewhere else.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt had a huge insulting factor to locals,\u201d City Councilwoman Rachel Richards said earlier this week in a work session<\/a>. \u201cIt was like separating the rich from the poor, and here you are going skiing and those rich people have something they can afford that you can\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last season, four spots were reserved on the south end of Hunter Street for the city\u2019s contractor, Ameristar Parking Solutions, to valet cars in the Rio Grande parking garage across town.<\/p>\n

It was an experiment<\/a> and the spots were taken all of Christmas week, and then on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays during the season, said Mitch Osur, the city\u2019s director of parking and downtown services.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did it because there was no parking by the gondola on a busy day,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

On average, between 20 and 30 people \u2014 mostly tourists \u2014 paid $40 a day to have their car parked for them, according to Osur.<\/p>\n

\u201cI call it a win,\u201d Osur said, adding those drivers would have driven around the core looking for a space, creating traffic congestion, and 20 to 30 spaces were freed up.<\/p>\n

That might have been well and good, but the appearances of it didn\u2019t sit well with locals.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is something I heard more complaints about than anything else in this community,\u201d Richards said.<\/p>\n

Councilwoman Ann Mullins agreed that reserving spaces in prime real estate in downtown Aspen sent a bad message.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish it was someplace else that it wasn\u2019t quite in your face,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s this equity thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mayor Torre said Thursday that he wasn\u2019t on council last year when the decision was made but if he was, he wouldn\u2019t have supported it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI question the equitability and ethic of that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Torre, Richards and Mullins said they would support reserved valet parking somewhere else.<\/p>\n

Osur was directed to look for alternative spots and will notify the valet company that things are in flux as they were planning to start Dec. 21.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to have a discussion sooner or later,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The daily and nighttime valet operation will remain where it has been in the past, in front of the Caribou Club on Hopkins Avenue.<\/p>\n

csackariason@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Calling it too elitist to have parking spaces reserved for valet parking at the base of the gondola in downtown Aspen, elected officials want to park the operation somewhere else. \u201cIt had a huge insulting factor to locals,\u201d City Councilwoman Rachel Richards said earlier this week in a work session. \u201cIt was like separating the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2450331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-19 11:14:38","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2450331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450331\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2450331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2450331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2450331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}