‘No parking’ signs around Sonoma County Fair raise questions

The Sonoma County Fair is here again, which means funnel cake and concerts, rides and horse racing and perhaps a collective groan from fairgrounds neighbors who see their street parking clogged with fairgoers who would prefer not to pay to park.

Through the years, residents have gotten creative, putting out unofficial parking cones and A-frame signs and strategically placing trash containers along the streets in front of their houses.

Santa Rosa parking officials could not be reached for comment, but parking along the street, unless the curb is painted red and designated for fire department access, or otherwise marked, is open to the public and cannot be reserved.

That hasn’t stopped the Sonoma County Fair from adding a bit of official flair these past several years to the parking shenanigans: A-frame signs that say “No Event Parking; Resident Parking Only.” The signs come complete with a Sonoma County Fair logo.

That doesn’t make them any more enforceable, but fair officials say they’re just trying to be good neighbors and so far, Santa Rosa city officials have looked the other way.

“At the request of the homeowners who were tired of people parking in their driveways and all of that, (the signs) go out before an event and then are all picked back up,” said Becky Bartling, Sonoma County Fair CEO.

Jack Clark, who lives in the 1700 block of Jeffery Street north of the fairgrounds, said he’s seen the signs from the fair for the past five or six years.

“Before the signs went in, we had to put cones and things out to keep people from parking in front of the house,” he said.

The signs have made the parking problems almost nonexistent, said Clark, 76.

He said he never saw any big confrontations before the signs went in, and he never got involved anyway - it’s not worth it, he said.

One neighbor who lives north of Highway 12 and asked not to be named said he received a sign about July 4 and nobody had come to pick it back up. The neighbor said the parking situation gets pretty tense during the fair.

He said he’s even seen neighbors physically attack fairgoers’ cars.

Clark said he knows the street parking is public, but he also thinks friends and family should have a spot in front of his house if they come to visit during the fair.

“It’s just common courtesy,” Clark said.

As the sun set over the fairgrounds Friday night, the fair-provided parking - at $9 per vehicle - was filling up as traffic clogged Bennett Valley Road. An event expected to draw 100,000-plus people in 11 days is bound to create some.

“We can’t mitigate all the traffic,” Bartling said. “We try to be good neighbors as much as possible.”

You can reach Staff Writer Tyler Silvy at 707-526-8667 or tyler.silvy@pressdemocrat.com.