EVERETT — Glenn Coggeshell showed up at the City Council meeting on Wednesday night with a wad of parking tickets; they belong to his customers.

He opened up Black Dot Coffee at 1804 Hewitt Ave. last fall. He told the council that aggressive parking enforcement is scaring off business.

Recently, a customer received a ticket after doing some business at a bank and then reparking in front of his place to get a cup of coffee, Coggeshell told the council.

“This hurts my business, and it hurts a lot of other businesses” especially those where people plan to linger, he said.

His comments touched off a discussion among the council about a longtime parking problem in Everett’s downtown.

The city spent considerable time examining this issue in the past, including hiring a consultant and publishing a report on management strategies in 2008. The study found parking was a problem downtown mainly because employees were moving their cars from one space to the next, taking up customer parking.

People who go to school or work downtown are only supposed to park once each day, according to city code and a pamphlet on proper parking distributed by the police. However, the code also says that others may “park and repark if the primary purpose of reparking is for shopping or securing services in the Central Business District.”

What isn’t spelled out is how parking enforcement officers are supposed to know who is a working downtown and who is shopping.

Right now, the city has 90-minute free parking on many streets downtown. Sometimes parking enforcement officers mark the back of tires but other times they enter license plates into a hand-held computer.

That means if you eat a long lunch some place on Hewitt and then decide to move your car to Colby Avenue and do some window shopping, you could get a ticket.

The study also pointed out that there was no consensus among those surveyed on how to best manage parking and that improvements required education and leadership.

At the meeting, Councilman Arlan Hatloe expressed dismay that no one so far had stepped up to solve the problem.

“It’s tough enough today in the business world today to keep your doors open,” Hatloe said. “It’s a little bit aggravating to me we haven’t found a solution.”

The parking situation is about to get worse in the next year or two — at least right around City Hall — as construction of the new municipal court and a new hotel get under way.

About 50 employees who work on the block won’t have off-street parking anymore and some street parking on that block might get taken up for construction staging.

Council President Shannon Affholter asked for a comprehensive briefing on the issue from city staff.

Debra Smith: 425-339-3197; dsmith@heraldnet.com.