Houlton cinema owner details parking issues

HOULTON, Maine — The owner of a downtown movie theater said Monday that he is thankful for the community support he has received since he went public on social media with an ongoing struggle he has had trying to sell or collect parking fees for a lot he owns next to the cinema. 

Charles Fortier, the owner of the Temple Cinema, said that the problem he discussed in a Facebook post on his business site has been ongoing for more than a year and he has to make a decision soon about what to do about it. Besides selling the lot, Fortier also is considering leasing parts of it to food trucks or other such businesses and raising all movie ticket prices by fifty cents so that he can open the lot for free. He is considering many ideas suggested by community residents who responded to the post.

“I am a business owner and a resident here and I don’t want to make anyone unhappy,” he said. “But I can’t continue to allow people to park in that lot for free, because it is impacting the theater.”

Fortier, 56, a Houlton native, businessman and writer, moved back to Aroostook County from New Jersey last year after purchasing the theater. The sale included the cinema, assessed at $203,000, according to Houlton tax documents, and a majority of the adjacent parking lot, which is valued at $32,700.

KeyBank leases 10 spaces from Fortier for its employees in the Temple lot, while other spots are used by residents of apartments in the area. Part of the lot is owned and occupied by Market Square Commons, a senior citizen housing unit.

Last July, Fortier approached the Town Council with an offer to sell the parking lot for its assessed value. Fortier also offered that the town could pay $4,500 per year over a seven-year, interest-free period. He suggested that the lot could be used by the town to alleviate complaints by citizens that there are a lack of parking spaces in Market Square.

Councilors declined the offer, however, after Town Manager Butch Asselin said that if the town were to purchase it and make it a paid lot, it would be the only such lot in the town and difficult to police. He also said the town would then be responsible for removing snow and painting the lines. Fortier said that he waited a few months before approaching the town again and dropped the price by ten percent. Asselin said late last week that after consulting with the council chairman, the matter was not brought up during a council meeting again because the majority of the council had opposed the purchase initially.

Last fall, Fortier closed one side of the lot and made it permit parking, charging $60 per vehicle per year. He also began ticketing vehicles who were in the lot without a permit. But not only did people who receive the tickets rip them up and refuse to pay, he said, they turned their anger on him.

Then, last fall he put up warning signs alerting those people entering the parking the lot that he would apply a boot, or immobilization device, to any vehicle whose owner violated the parking ban, and that he would charge violators to remove the boot.

“I really thought that selling people a permit at $5 a month was a good deal, especially after I left the lot open to free parking for eight months when I first bought the place,” he said. “And I have only booted one vehicle so far and in the end I didn’t charge the owner. But I started hearing people say that I was this terrible person who moved here with his ‘big city ways’ instead of a Houlton native just trying to make a living. Especially with the raise in the minimum wage coming up, I simply can’t continue to be a charity.”

During the Town Council meeting on Monday evening, Jane Torres, executive director of the Greater Houlton Chamber of Commerce asked that the matter be put on the agenda for the next council meeting, scheduled for June 12.

“It has become this big thing on social media and the general consensus is the townspeople want us to buy that parking lot,” Torres said. “It was offered to us for a great deal, with payment in lieu of taxes. I think that is an important piece of property and if we can get it for the same deal as we were offered before, we should look at it.”