Visitor to zoo: Rethink parking fee

Although it’s been a long time since I’ve called Fresno home, I still have fond memories of the Fresno Chaffee Zoo.

This Thanksgiving weekend while visiting family, I brought my own children to the zoo. It’s a lovely facility and a welcoming place for families. Parking is only $5, which is also a plus. However, the line just to get to the booth to pay for parking was long and slow, and it wasn’t until I was only a couple of cars away from the booth that I saw a little sign in the window that said “cash only.”

I, like many people I know, don’t typically carry cash. When I reached the booth, I was told that there was no alternative to paying cash, and I would have to turn around and brave the neighborhood outside the zoo in the hopes of finding an ATM. This is the neighborhood in which a young woman I attended high school with was shot not very many years ago.

The cash-only payment plan for parking at the zoo is poor planning and execution; there has to be some alternative to sending families out into the neighborhood to find an ATM.

This story was originally published December 3, 2015 at 7:54 AM with the headline "Visitor to zoo: Rethink parking fee."