Yoga and cafe in parking dispute

Yoga practitioners are getting a group of Dunedin businesses, and their customers, in a twist.

A dispute over the use of two P5 parking spaces in St Andrew St has broken out between yoga practitioners of the Bikram Yoga Dunedin studio and the owners and customers of the Cinnamon Cafe.

The row has been simmering since just before Christmas, when the yoga studio opened, but yesterday boiled over when Dunedin woman and regular cafe customer Sandra Clark staged a sit-in protest on the street.

Ms Clark said she was frustrated yoga practitioners attending the studio's 6.30am class were parking in the P5 spaces, between George and Filleul Sts, for more than an hour each morning.

That meant customers wanting to dash into the Cinnamon Cafe, which also opened at 6.30am, for their morning coffee fix, were not able to do so, she said.

The yoga practitioners were also using the street's loading zones, upsetting other businesses in the street and prompting some delivery drivers to double-park, she said.

Ms Clark, a cafe customer since 2007, said she had pleaded with the yoga studio's owner and practitioners to use nearby pay and display parking spaces, and complained to the council, but her pleas had "fallen on deaf ears".

Yesterday, she took matters into her own hands, sitting in one of the P5 parking spaces for more than an hour from 6am and chasing away "three or four" yoga practitioners eyeing the spaces.

"I'm all for the little guy and I don't like injustices . . . These yoga guys are making a mockery of [parking restrictions]. It says 'park five at all times' on the sign," she said.

Cafe manager Bronwyn Kyle said the yoga practitioners' parking behaviour was "killing our wee business".

She had also approached the council and the studio, without success.

"It's nice to see other businesses starting up, but there's other places they could park," she said.

Ms Kyle said council staff told her parking wardens did not start until 8am, and advised her to ring police.

"I'm not ringing the police. That's ridiculous."

Bikram Yoga Dunedin owner Donna Wikio said a notice in her studio and on her website advised practitioners not to use the P5 parks, but it was difficult to get the message across to a steady stream of new practitioners.

"Beyond that, I don't know what, really, I'm supposed to do.

"I'm not policing the parking on the main street. They are not my parks."

Council development services manager Kevin Thompson was not aware of the dispute when contacted, but said wardens would be asked to monitor the area "now that you have brought that to my attention".

The P5 limit for the St Andrew St spaces applied at all times, while some others in the city applied only between 8am and 6pm, he said.

However, enforcement usually began when the first wardens started work at 7am.

Wardens could be paid overtime to monitor the spaces earlier in the morning, and that would be considered if the problem persisted, he said.

The spaces would also be included in a pre-planned operation focusing on bus and taxi spaces, expected to begin next month and last up to two weeks, he said.

That operation would see wardens working until 9pm, but not earlier in the morning.

chris.morris@odt.co.nz