New uses for old meters

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 34013, 29 November 1975, Page 6

New uses for old meters

(N.Z. Press Assn —Copyright)

KANSAS CITY. Kansas City may have the answer for distraught, impatient parents whose teen-aged children spend too much time in the bathroom—buy a parking meter and start charging overtime. That is one idea that has been suggested, for 800 old parking meters which were placed on sale for $l5 each last week. Commissioner Charles Johnson, of the Kansas City Purchasing and Supply Department, said the biggest response received from buyers was that they want meters for their bathrooms “to get the kids to move in and out faster.” Mr Johnson has also noticed some of the recent nostalgia craze among buyers of the 30-year-old 20pound, nickel and penny meters. He says a Colorado man ordered two meters just because he is sentimental. “The Colorado man said he got so many parking tickets in Kansas City, he wanted one of the meters for old times sake. He bought two.” * Mr Johnson and four office workers have been manning telephones to answer the barrage of calls about the meters. He has re-

ceived calls from as far away as California. “Theoretically, we’ve had enough offers to sell them all, at the rate the calls have come in,” he said. People are buying the meters for assorted reasons, practical and otherwise. “One man wanted to put one in front of his house as a warning to his neighbour who parks on his side of the street,” Mr Johnson said. “Some people want to put them on their driveways as jokes, some want them for conversation pieces and some want them for lamps.” A Tulsa, Oklahoma, man bought 20 and a Los Angeles firm offered to buy the en“If we have any left over, tire stock, but Mr Johnson declined, saying lie wanted to give the general public first choice in the buying.