Bouncers ‘help’ parking attendants, residents’ groups not impressed

A bouncer (in red) at a parking lot in Sector 35, Chandigarh. Sahil Walia

AT THE city’s busiest parking lots in Sectors 22 and 35, bouncers have been roped in to ‘help’ parking attendants. However, the move has not gone down well with city resident welfare associations, who say that women commuters feel unsafe in the presence of bouncers. In Sector 35, along with a regular parking attendant, it is two bouncers who issue parking slips and collect the parking fee from people. In case the regular attendant is issuing slips, the bouncers constantly hover around near the entry point and step in when a person refuses to give the parking fee.
“In fact, people would go paying without the parking fee here. As there are hotels and pubs in this line, there were many who would come in an inebriated state and get into brawls with the attendants, following which the bouncers were roped in to help us out,” a parking attendant at Sector 35 said.

In Sector 22, these bouncers not just help in collecting parking fee but also help in removing the vendors who encroach upon parking space. A company official said, “The civic body doesn’t remove the vendors from the parking space so these bouncers help us out. There were several market association members who would fight and go without paying. They would indulge in brawls resulting which it was the parking attendant who would have to suffer. We will deploy them at other parking lots as well.”

Chairman of the Federation of Sectors Welfare Association of Chandigarh Baljinder Singh Bittu said the move was aimed at “scaring” residents and that the Municipal Corporation must direct the firm to immediately withdraw the bouncers from the parking lots.

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“There are women commuters, including young girls, who come for shopping or attending parties at the hotels. They feel really unsafe in their (bouncers) presence. If people are not paying fee, the firm managing parking lots must complain to the Municipal Corporation but adopting this method is not done,” Bittu said.

Sunil Chopra, a shopkeeper at Sector 22, said after four hours, parking fee would increase and if residents do not pay, “recovery” is done by the bouncer. “Often, when a parking attendant would ask for fee, people would snub them and leave. But when bouncers are there, they quietly pay the fee,” he said.

Municipal Commissioner Jitender Yadav said that he has asked the firm concerned to remove bouncers immediately and had already conveyed to the firm managing the parking lots to take help of police or enforcement branch of the Corporation and not bouncers.