A family was left with a bad taste in their mouths after a parking company fined them £150 for taking 11 minutes too long at a pizza restaurant.
Matt Turner had taken his five-year-old daughter Rebecca to the Pizza Hut on Great Portwood Street, Stockport, for a birthday treat.They parked in the Pizza Hut car park and spent just over two hours in the restaurant.But when they left, Matt was amazed to find he and his girlfriend’s sister had been fined £75 each – because they hadn’t eaten their food within a two-hour time limit. Matt, a deputy head teacher, said: “It’s a £200 pizza bill, in effect – it’s staggering.
“Pizza Hut were extremely slow at serving their food, so we waited for ages.
“They took a while to bring the food out and by the time we waited for the bill, we had been there for just over two hours – two hours and 11 minutes to be precise. “We were only in that long because they were slow. So if you take longer than two hours to eat a pizza, it costs you £75.”
“I was absolutely gobsmacked and I feel very hard done by. It has put a real dampener on things and was a sour note on my daughter’s fifth birthday.
In other news, there are people who still eat at Pizza Hut.
The headline is very misleading. The delayed food is not the problem. Being charged a parking fee for staying over 2 hours is not the problem
The problem is the amount of the parking fee. That is outrageous. If they had charged them perhaps 3 or 4 pounds, tops, then that would be reasonable.
I don’t think that this is Pizza Hut’s problem. It sounds like the car lot owners have a screw loose and decided to see what they could get away with.
If I were the car owners, I’d refuse to pay and make them take it to court.
Yeah-England. Who cares. Nothing to see here, move along…
Charge the car park $600 for the video of your car I’m sure they have.
So… there are restaurants with time limited parking lots? Who knew?! I’m sure Pizza the Hut’s PR department will be all over this in short order. NPI.
Why is this news? An illiterate family who couldn’t read the “2-Hour Parking” sign is outraged at a fine. Oh noes!
#4
Nah, unlike in the USA Europe’s teeming with white folk, so they can squish them as much as they want.
[Duplicate comment deleted. Please don’t double post! – ed.]
I don’t care who runs the parking lot. If the sign says “Pizza Hut” car park, or parking for “Pizza Hut” customers, and Pizza Hut took too long to serve the food, then “Pizza Hut” is responsible. The sign can’t say Pizza Hut without their permission. If the local store won’t make good, then I would go right up the line to the corporation. Before I would pay that fine, I would see to it that the restaurant owner lost his franchise.
On the other hand, if by “Pizza Hut car park” the article means a parking lot that is near Pizza Hut, but is not associated with it, then the people should have known to move the car before two hours is up. (Although I would still make sure the restaurant owner/manager knew that I would recommend people stay away until he makes appropriate parking arrangements to cover his eatery’s slow serving time)
Why is this news? An illiterate person who couldn’t read the “Comment Moderation is Active, so if your comment doesn’t
show up immediately, please don’t submit it again.” sign is outraged at a fine. Oh noes!!
How does crap like this make the news? Is there anyone who hasn’t gotten a bogus ticket before?
[Comment deleted – Violation of Posting Guidelines. – ed.]
#10, jc,
Actually no, I haven’t.
I do remember one time I was visiting someone in a hospital and looking out the window from the seventh floor as my car was ticketed. Checking my watch it was 4:00. That stretch became No-Parking at 3:55. At 4:30 it became a Tow Away Zone. The guy died that night which really bit my butt.
Another time I got my one and only speeding ticket. I was out in the country on my bike and didn’t realize the speed dropped from 50 to a 35. The cop apologized and confessed to getting a ticket in the same spot riding his bike a week or two earlier. His Sargent gave him this detail because of the ticket. That took the sting out of it.
But no. I’ve never received an justified ticket before.
I would have gone in Pizza Hut’s bathroom and left an upper decker.
M-m-Pizza…
Thanks, Ed, for deleting that comment, but leaving your ignorant #9 post. That’s mature.
#15, Ryan,
The illiterate get special consideration around here. We were kind of hoping that at least you had a brain.
*
In my #12 comment, that should have read UNjustified ticket.
Arrrgghh! Them be parking lot pirates.
The problem is the amount of the parking fee. That is outrageous. If they had charged them perhaps 3 or 4 pounds, tops, then that would be reasonable.