Local beaches can get very crowded, especially on holiday weekends and the crowds can be a mixed blessing for local residents.
Roger Moses loves hitting the beach in Innisfil with his kids. But you will never catch him there on the weekend when the beach is flooded with out-of-town visitors.
“On weekends and especially long weekends it can get crazy around here. I came today with the kids because I knew it would be kind of quiet.”
And on those busy days, parking is at a premium. It’s been such an issue for locals this year the Town of Innisfil has blocked off 71 of its 435 parking spots just for local residents.
“Concerns that have come from residents caught the attention of council. So this year there will be some spots specifically set aside for local people,” says Jason Inwood with the Town of Innisfil.
Fifty thousand people visit Innisfil Beach Park every summer – 20,000 are from out of town. The town says there are plenty of economic spinoffs to having visitors but once the weekend wraps up there’s a lot more to clean up.
Inwood says the town collets "40 cubic yards of trash twice a week during the summer. We don’t get that in a month outside the summer."
In Barrie, out-of-town visitors bring in big bucks. About 280,000 people stayed over for a night in 2013, spending about $19 million. Now, for the first time, the city is now charging out-of-town visitors to park by the waterfront at a rate of $3 an hour, up to $15 for the day.
