Member-only story
A Car Park attendant who fooled everybody for over 20-years.
This guy was the perfect Robin Hood, only he kept the proceeds for himself. As my father used to say … “charity starts at home”. He didn’t include car washes or anything special, he followed the cardinal rule of success. Keep it simple! Cheap parking.
I love this guy and can’t quite fathom if it’s the “Robin Hood ‘’ aspect, the audacity and genius of the endeavor or the fact it highlights how inept all our local governments really are from Vancouver to Vladivostok and everywhere in between . But I am somehow happy for this man who benefited from his daring.
A man at the Bristol Zoo in the United Kingdom has been collecting money off every car parked in the car park attached to the zoo. Nobody is entirely sure when (exactly) he started but it was definitely recorded as more than 20-years ago. It is thought, he has been doing this for between 20 and 25 years. He charges 3 quid per car for parking and is an institution in Bristol – everybody knew him. Or thought they did. Teenage kids who befriended him when brought by parents, introduced their children to him years later.
Such a happy fellow. Not a care in the world.
Now for most who don’t know, the Bristol Zoo has two car parks PLUS an overflow parking area that can hold a FURTHER 700 cars on public land designated for recreation. This is a busy zoo.
We are not talking about 10 or so odd parking spots here. This is parking on a massive commercial scale and operational every single day.
And the beauty of this scam is that it is because the attendant WAS NOT at his post one morning, that the scam was revealed. Like the mythical postman who delivers in any weather, for more than 20-years, come rain or shine, this attendant was at his post collecting his parking fee. In cash! He never missed a day and consequently there was no need to investigate the situation.
Like something you pass every day but do not recognize till its gone, this chap just blended into the Bristol panorama.
Who hasn’t got £3.00 on them. It’s cheap by UK standards. Only … it was always actually free.
