Bristol Zoo carpark thief

[snopes]

http://www.snopes.com/crime/clever/carpark.asp

[Andrew of Ware]

Poor bloke. He probably didn't get any invites to any works Christmas parties. But what happened at weekends and when he had holidays. Could people park for free? What a great scam.

[Jay Tea]

Parking attendant? Was it Reg Varney?

Nah. 25 years is too ambitious, never happened. If the carpark 'was' supposed to be charging then the missing money would have been noticed by somebody, especially as tour companies that deal with school parties etc pay in advance.

If the carpark was free and this scammer was taking advantage of the fact nobody realised this, there's no way he could maintain the scam for 25 years - few weeks maybe, a month or two, but 25 years? Bah!

When I was a kid we were passing a sporting venue late one night and saw bundles of programmes for the next day stacked neatly in the corner. Availing ourselves of a couple of bundles, we started selling them outside the ground in the morning, undercutting the official price. It wasn't long before we were being chased off down the street

[Tarquin Farquart]

Originally Posted by Jay Tea

If the carpark was free and this scammer was taking advantage of the fact nobody realised this, there's no way he could maintain the scam for 25 years - few weeks maybe, a month or two, but 25 years? Bah!

I have to agree, unless the carpark was in the actual zoo, it'd be most likely council-operated anyway.

[Andrew of Ware]

I've just thought (I'm a bit slow today). Wasn't Bristol Zoo the zoo where Johnny Morris used to film 'Animal Magic' with him dubbing stupid voices on to animals? Ah, the innocence of 1960s children's television.

[Tarquin Farquart]

Originally Posted by Andrew of Ware

I've just thought (I'm a bit slow today). Wasn't Bristol Zoo the zoo where Johnny Morris used to film 'Animal Magic' with him dubbing stupid voices on to animals? Ah, the innocence of 1960s children's television.

Maybe it was him in the car park. Stranger things have happened...

[Andrew of Ware]

I'm not saying that the story is true, but the car park charges at Bristol Zoo are £1 per day.

Bristol Zoo page

[Tarquin Farquart]

Originally Posted by Andrew of Ware

I'm not saying that the story is trues, but the car park charges at Bristol Zoo are £1 per day.

Bristol Zoo page

Doesn't say how much coaches are though? And wouldn't £1 be a lot for car parking 25 years ago?

[Eddylizard]

Originally Posted by Tarquin Farquart

Doesn't say how much coaches are though? And wouldn't £1 be a lot for car parking 25 years ago?

In real terms(adjusted for inflation) in todays money about £2.56. Retail price index

Not terribly outrageous for 1982.

[James G]

The carpark outside Bristol Zoo, or one carpark near there anyway, is a large field, not a big tarmaced expanse. Unfortunately I have little recollection of wheter it was charged for or not, and who collected the money.

[llewtrah]

I want to go to Bristol Zoo! I used to lodge in Bishopston with a bunch of Airbus people and once we got the bus and then went geocaching near the zoo. I wanted to go to the zoo and they wouldn't let me. Not fair.

[snopes]

Comment: From yesterdays Bristol Evening Post:

Outside Bristol Zoo is the car park, with spaces for 150 cars and 8
coaches. It has been manned 6 days a week for 23 years by the same
charming and very polite car park attendant with the ticket machine. The
charges are Ł1. per car and Ł5. per coach.

On Monday 1 June, he did not turn up for work. Bristol Zoo management
phoned Bristol City Council to ask them to send a replacement parking
attendant.

The Council said "That car park is your responsibility." The Zoo said "The
attendant was employed by the City Council... wasn't he?" The Council said
"What attendant?"

Gone missing from his home is a man who has been taking daily the car park
fees amounting to about Ł400. per day for the last 23 years...!

[Tarquin Farquart]

Originally Posted by snopes

Comment: From yesterdays Bristol Evening Post:

I wouldn't believe a word printed in that paper.

[TrishDaDish]

Originally Posted by snopes

Sitting in his villa in Spain is bloke who had been taking the car park takings for Bristol Zoo for the last 25 years...

We have no idea who he is, but we know he's in Spain? How?

[snopes]

If the carpark was free and this scammer was taking advantage of the fact nobody realised this, there's no way he could maintain the scam for 25 years - few weeks maybe, a month or two, but 25 years? Bah!

And what did he do on days when he was sick or otherwise couldn't make it to his "job"? Did he phone around to temp agencies and engage substitute phony carpark attendants to take his place?

[Joostik]

It took the Bristol Zoo 25 years to realise they owned the parking lot?

[Eddylizard]

Originally Posted by TrishDaDish

We have no idea who he is, but we know he's in Spain? How?

"Sitting in a villa in Spain" and similar is or was a fairly common jocular cliche to describe a career criminal who had either retired or fled justice (or both)

It stems from a time when it was extremely difficult if not impossible to extradite criminals back to Britain specifically from Spain, and indeed many criminals did flee there if they felt the police were on their heels.

Not only was it a safe haven, but it's close enough in the case or organised crime to continue to direct some operations back home, and set up meetings with cohorts still operating in the UK. Not of course that Car Park man's supposed scam was an organised crime operation.

The Costa del Crime is another such cliche.

Hence criminals who were eluding the police were often joked about as "sitting in a villa in Spain" even if there's no suggestion they actually ever went to Spain.

[Troberg]

Originally Posted by Joostik

It took the Bristol Zoo 25 years to realise they owned the parking lot?

Good point. By a strange coincidence, 25 years is the "normal" life expectancy of asphalt based pavements in the model I use our company's pavement management system. Of course, this lifespan is modified by various factors, such as traffic, type of asphalt (four factors on that alone), amount of heavy traffic and so on, maybe 15 factors all in all.

The interesting thing here is that, contrary to what one might believe, a parking lot has a shorter life span than a road, for two reasons:

* The cars park in the same place, causing deformations in the surface.
* Lower tolerance for puddles, in other words, lower tolerance for deformations.

In other words, in 25 years, it should have been repaved at least once, not to mention periodic maintenance such as sweeping, repainting lines, replacing/cleaning signs, fixing broken stuff, cleaning drainage wells and so on. In 25 years, there has probably have been a fair amount of cars dumped there which has been towed away as well.

A parking space is not a fire and forget construction, it requires maintenance.

[Smoke & Mirrors]

Originally Posted by James G

The carpark outside Bristol Zoo, or one carpark near there anyway, is a large field, not a big tarmaced expanse. Unfortunately I have little recollection of wheter it was charged for or not, and who collected the money.

I live about a hundred yards from the zoo.

The main carpark is indeed tarmaced as described in the OP. It is woefully inadequate in terms of capacity, and the larger overflow carpark is almost always necessary, even during weekdays during term time. There are several nearby portions of "The Downs" (aka Durdham Down) commonly used for this purpose. The Downs is a 400-acre area of public space bordered by the Avon Gorge on one side, and the suburbs of Clifton, Redland, Henleaze and Westbury-On-Trym. The overflow carpark changes location regularly to excessive damage to the grass.

[Eddylizard]

Originally Posted by Smoke & Mirrors

I live about a hundred yards from the zoo.

J'accuse!

What's your villa in Spain like? Can we see photos?