Yukon Walmart to ban overnight parking

[Rickeoni]

https://www.yukon-news.com/business/...is-summer/amp/

[60sumtin]

If the 'campers' are leaving a mess and/or causing parking issues then as usual it's the bad behavior of a few that will spoil it for everyone else.

[Crankshaft]

https://www.yukon-news.com/opinion/wyatts-world-99/amp/

[IC2]

There is a video on You Tube about the so-called campers there and at a lot in Alaska. These lots are virtually filled with squatters who claim they are simply 'camping' for a day or so. Except that day or so becomes the entire summer season. An those RVs - many would be better off in a salvage yard.

What has happened is that these, and I hate to say it, undesireable squatters make it tough to even shop at Walmart and have spoiled it for those that just want an overnight stay while enroute.

[weredoingit]

Well it's too bad, I guess but I wish the 2 Wal-Marts in my county would do the same thing. The Wal-Mart that my wife and I shop at is 7 minutes from my house. It's right next to Hwy. 101 so I drive by it daily. Frankly I'm embarrassed with the amount of RV'S that use Wal-Mart as a campground. Some obviously are living in their RV'S while others are legit RV'ers but even the RV's that are legit travelers stay 2 or 3 nights, even though one exit north is very nice campground. Wal-Mart started opening up their parking lot's to people like us that are traveling down the HWY. and need a safe place to pull over and get a FEW hours sleep and then get back on the road. But now nobody thinks twice about staying at a wal-mart for day's on end. These are the people that are ruining it. Theirs a thread right now in the "Boondocking page, a person who admits to staying for days because their was no campground close to her event. Sorry but lot's of people are abusing Wal-Marts kindness. It's only a matter of time and they will all be banned.

[hohenwald48]

It would be nice if WalMart could somehow limit folks to a single night while in transit. I know that's not the business that WalMart is in but it would help limit some of the parking lot squatters. Like weredoingit indicates, some of these WM lots look like trash dumps and haunts for derelict RV's. Throw in the truckers dumping their urine in the lot and it just gets worse.

I also love it when folks justify their stay in a WM lot by saying they buy xx$ worth of stuff in the store. Like getting the stuff for xx$ is not enough to justify the expense so they are entitled to a free nights stay too.

Communities banning overnight parking is also a mixed bag for the community unless they can come up with an alternate way to accommodate those RV'ers. If they don't, then the RV'ers will be forced to move on down the road and take their dollars elsewhere. That could have a significant economic impact on some communities.

I suspect you will see a decrease in RV sales somewhere in the future due to the problems associated with finding an available space to park while travelling. Some folks will simple decide to stay home instead of dealing with the growing parking problem and increased costs of RV parks.

The increased number of RV's being sold and the limited parking for all those new RV's is creating a whole new set of problems for RV'ers and those who serve them. Additionally, the high number of first time RV'ers is changing the landscape a lot too. Things will eventually settle down. Every time I look at the RV sales sites I see a good many low mileage recent vintage RV's for sale. I see that as an indicator of folks buying RV's and then finding it's not exactly like the GoRving ads lead you to believe.

[FatChance]

Maybe Walmart should start a 10 year old rule?

[emoji3]

[hohenwald48]

Originally Posted by FatChance

Maybe Walmart should start a 10 year old rule?

[emoji3]

Sounds to me like they're going to start an any year old rule.

[Cloud Dancer]

Walmart has done pretty good managing their business. But, I prefer the one that has the shade trees, grass and picnic tables.

[biggcrisp]

There is a small town nearby me that has full hookups for camping in an open field next to their poopy plant. Now if every town could accommodate us with the same respect that we have evidently earned.

[GBB]

Our local Fred Meyers allows overnight campers, i dont know what the time limit is, but it gets abused. Ive seen the same ones for days on end. It gets so packed theres no parking for locals to shop. What gets me is you'll see half millon dollar motorhomes parked there. Someone drives 5000 miles to park in a parking lot? Now thats a real Alaskan experience.

[bfisher003]

I am sorry to hear this because staying at the Whitehorse Walmart one night each way was part of the Alaska Highway “experience” for us last summer. It had nothing to do with “free.” We resupplied at the Walmart both directions, bought four new trailer tires at a local tire shop and also spent money in the nearby Canadian Tire store. All in all we probably dropped around $1,000 in Whitehorse that we might not have had we not been allowed (with store permission) to overnight there. I don’t like to unhook the trailer for one night stops, so if we had stayed in a regular campground I would probably not have unhooked the trailer to run in to shop.
But I can appreciate Walmart’s concern because we saw at least two seemingly derelict trailers sitting in their parking lot on our way north and they were still sitting there several weeks later. I understand the easiest thing for Walmart to do is to just ban all overnight rather than policing those multi-night/weeks squatters, but I do think doing so would have a negative financial impact. We have never and will never overnight more than one night at any Walmart and we always follow the golden rule of camping to leave a place better/cleaner than we found it even though we are parking, not camping at Walmart.

[Tony Lee]

Slow news day for the local paper.

We were there a couple of weeks ago and there was no trash and parking and behaviour was quite orderly.
The "culprits" are the local RV parks that have been lodging complaints - as set out on a notice board tied to a lamp post in the middle of the RV parking area.

The manager came around and those who had already spent a night were given their marching orders and anyone not in their RV at the time came back to a "go or get towed" notice taped to their RV door.

If there are people spending the entire summer there - and there were when we went through several years ago - then it is up to Walmart to do something about it.

[TCollins]

Perhaps WM and others need to start charging a nominal daily fee. That would tend to discourage the abusers but would require a way to monitor those who paid and those who didn't.