SHORTAGE THAWS SEASON BUSINESSES SUFFERING
BUSINESSES SUFFERING: Lack of parking, not ice, puts damper on ice fishingCHAUMONT — Hundreds of anglers are flocking to the village to take advantage of Chaumont Bay's early freeze, but some local business owners argued they were not able to take full advantage of the early start to the ice fishing season because of a parking shortage near the bay.
Gregory M. Netto, owner of the Chaumont Hardware store, Route 12E, said he saw a "phenomenal" number of visitors over the holiday weekend during the last week of December.
"We got ice two weeks before Christmas. And my phone has been ringing off the hook with people calling from all over the place — Syracuse, Albany, Rochester, Buffalo," Mr. Netto said. "Chaumont Bay is a world-class fishery and people know it."
Unfortunately, he said, the parking shortage created last winter by the town of Lyme's parking ban along County Route 125, a popular parking spot for ice fishermen on Point Salubrious, is turning away a large number of anglers.
Mostly, they're not coming now because there's no place to park," he said, adding that anglers often end up walking 11/2 miles to a fishing spot from the closest parking space available.
Jamie L. Bliven, owner of the Duck Stop Diner, said she also has been losing a significant amount of business because of the parking shortage.
"I'm probably losing at least 30 customers on the weekends. And they're big guys who are spending the whole day outside," Ms. Bliven said.
And it's not only the hardware store or her restaurant that is losing customers, she said.
"It's affecting every business in Chaumont. We're not as busy as we could be. There has got to be a solution, a compromise. The town needs to assure summer residents that their properties will not be damaged," she said.
The County Route 125 parking ban came after several Point Salubrious residents complained that their properties had been damaged by anglers. The Lyme Town Council also determined that the road was too narrow for emergency vehicles and plows to maneuver when cars are parked along it.
Lyme Supervisor Scott G. Aubertine said the council had explored every option available to create more parking spaces for anglers while protecting private property.
The town had considered converting a couple of Point Salubrious properties into parking lots, but that plan fell through after the landowners backed out of the deal.
Mr. Aubertine said he had also contacted the state Department of Environmental Conservation to see if it would purchase a large area of exposed flat rock and allow anglers to park there.
DEC declined to do so because it did not want to be held liable if a vehicle fell through the ice in that area, he said.
"The last two winters, I've spent a lot of my time to find solutions. But none of them worked out in the end," Mr. Aubertine said.
Since last winter, Lyme has been asking anglers to park at the Chaumont Bay boat launch or the village beach on Bay View Drive.
A few Point Salubrious homeowners have opened up their driveways to provide parking spaces, but those take care of only a couple of cars among the hundreds that drive into Chaumont, Ms. Bliven said.
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