Downtown traders shut up shop to protest parking restrictions

AMMAN — The “destruction of the heart” of downtown Amman prompted shops and restaurants to close in a spontaneous protest for several hours on Tuesday. 

Dozens of traders in downtown decided to take action against the “arbitrary traffic measures taken against them”, Foodstuff Traders Association President Khalil Haj Tawfiq told The Jordan Times on Wednesday. 

“A hundred shops and restaurants, some of which have been operating for decades, closed for a few hours to show their frustration over the strict parking measures,” he said. 

Haj Tawfiq noted that customers who park outside shops and restaurants downtown are issued parking tickets, causing people to avoid the area. 

“Such measures have caused tremendous losses to the shops. Some of them reported that sales have dropped more than 70 per cent, which in turn led to laying-off workers,” he added.

Ahmad Oweiwi, who owns a shoe shop in downtown Amman, said his business is “almost destroyed” because customers cannot park outside his shop for even “a fraction of a second”. 

“I lost 90 per cent of my customers. Authorities say that the strict parking measures are smoothed out at night but this is untrue,” he told The Jordan Times. 

According to Oweiwi, parking tickets are issued even after midnight.

Mobile phone shop owner Muneer Halawani echoed Oweiwi’s remarks, charging that the Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) had “destroyed the heart of the downtown area”.

“My shop dates back to 1995 and I can tell you that I have never witnessed what is currently happening in the area. All shops have incurred at least 70 per cent losses due to parking tickets,” he said. 

Qais Awwad, who owns a clothes shop downtown, said there were no free parking lots in the whole area and that the traffic police advise people to park in Jabal Luweibdeh, which is a 45-minute walk from downtown. 

The retailers urged authorities to seek alternatives to banning cars from parking, such as charging JD1 per hour to park on the street. 

The traders reopened their shops after the head of the local police station sat with them and convinced them to resume trading. 

“He promised the shop owners that he would talk to GAM and the head of the traffic department and set up a meeting between the two parties,” Haj Tawfiq said. 

Meanwhile, Tariq Tabaa, board member at the Jordan Chamber of Commerce, said the issue requires “thorough” studies, and cooperation between GAM and the private sector. 

“We always support the application of the law, but we hoped that the municipality would sit with us and discuss alternatives to solve traffic congestion in commercial areas,” Tabaa told The Jordan Times.

The increasing number of cars entering the Kingdom during the summer and the growing population prompted authorities to look for swift solutions to traffic problems, he noted.  

“Amman is expanding and the number of people is increasing. We are in dire need of proper public-private partnership for better planning,” Tabaa said.

In previous remarks, Amman Traffic Department Director Col. Bassem Kharabsheh said the alternative to regulating the flow of cars in commercial areas is “allowing chaos”.

“Let us argue that we can override the law and allow people to park outside shops as long as they want to. This would mean that cars would close down streets and interrupt traffic flow for hours. This is an illogical equation that would harm traders even more,” he told The Jordan Times earlier this year. 

While acknowledging that there were not enough parking areas around shopping centres in Amman, he suggested that shop owners should take responsibility for creating parking spaces. 

“If parking lots are destroying their businesses, they can come up with ideas to resolve the issues, such as constructing multi-storey buildings,” Kharabsheh said.