Re: ‘RV’ parking on Qualicum Beach
Qualicum Beach is not set up as a campsite. There are no facilities for clothes washing, dish washing or disposal of the amount garbage that results from people camping overnight.
This results in garbage bins overflowing with kitchen debris, not a lovely sight to greet those of us early walkers on the beach. In addition, a town worker told me there are often clogged sinks in the bathrooms from people attempting to wash their dishes in the bathroom sinks.
The parking on Qualicum Beach is not adequate as it is, and especially on summer weekends there are cars lined up, unsafely, on the opposite side of the road. These RVs take up the marked parking spaces for the duration of their stay which, in the case of some individuals, lasts for weeks or even the entire summer into late fall.
There are signs on the beach benches that say ‘no overnight parking’. To aid in the enforcement of the bylaw, I suggest hiring a person to walk the beach before 7 a.m. to ticket the RV owners, and make the fine enough to be a deterrent.
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I counted 11 obvious overnighter vehicles on Aug. 5 at 7:30 a.m. This is not an unusual number, they are there consistently in volume, and the same vehicles often for days or weeks at a stretch.
Some of these are not so much RVs as cars with makeshift beds and curtains.
It is disturbing that I have heard some people say the town has plans to increase the amount of RV parking on the beach and charge for it. If I wanted a beach like Parksville beach, I would have moved there.
If the town really wants to create an RV park on the beach, why not use the recently acquired land surrounding the St. Andrews Lodge? This would allow those of us who live here to continue to enjoy our beautiful beach, and those who come in RVs to have proper facilities, easily installed.
Rosemary A. Drummond
Qualicum Beach