New pay stations and parking meters could soon come to FMB

FORT MYERS BEACH, Fla.- It’s your money and Fort Myers Beach wants to use more than $120,000 of it to replace worn out parking meters and pay stations. They would be paid for using the money that drivers used to pay parking tickets and feed the meters.

“I’ve had it, I’m done, this really puts the icing on the cake.”

Long time Fort Myers Beach resident, Ed Zammit, came out to find the parking meter he was using, ate his money and is now out of order.

“I fed this meter $5 to 6, and I had 3 1/2 hours on it about 10 minutes ago.”

When he parked in the spot, he said the meter looked like it was working just fine. One it began to flash “out of order,” Zammit worried he would get a ticket, so he posted a sign. “And now, it has no minutes left, I am very upset.”

He said in the past, a faulty meter swallowed his money and the town cited him and now, he’d like to see new meters installed on the beach.

“It’s a pain in the neck all around, we like to make it as easy for beach goers as we could,” said Chelsea O’Riley with FMB Public Works.

WINK News is told, the town wants to spend over $120,000 to replace nine pay stations and 100 parking meters.

“We get people inside the store asking for change, multiple times a day.”

One employee at Times Square Ink shot cellphone video of a man fighting with a machine. “We’ve seen people almost ripping the machines out of the concrete, it gets kind of crazy, but understandably, people do get upset.”

The town says the machines are old and haven’t been able to withstand the Florida weather.