By Bobby Cherry

Published: Wednesday, February 20, 2013, 12:01 a.m.
Updated: Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Squares pegs don't fit into round holes, and quarters don't go into credit-card slots.

But that's exactly what has happened on at least two different occasions this month at the borough's Division Street parking pay station, Sewickley manager Kevin Flannery said.

“Someone jammed five dollars in quarters into the credit card reader,” Sewickley public works foreman Howard Miller said in an email Feb. 7 — the first day coins were found in the credit card slot.

“We removed the coins and put a new credit card reader in this pay station.”

About 50 parking spaces are served by the meter in the Division Street lot. Borough officials in 2009 installed the meter and a second one at the Green Street lot, which also serves about 50 spaces.

Borough workers replaced broken equipment after the first incident, but four quarters were found inside the credit card slot a few days later, Flannery said.

The machine was down at least four days this month.

The borough lost at least $100 in revenue on Feb. 11, Flannery said. He did not estimate how much money the borough has lost over the entire span.

“We're not real happy about it,” Flannery said.

Borough officials planned to monitor the meter to determine who might be inserting coins into the wrong slot, he said.

Parking in Sewickley is metered weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Borough officials have had on-again, off-again issues — mostly weather related — with the two metered pay stations since installing the machines.

Bobby Cherry is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 412-324-1408 or rcherry@tribweb.com.

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