This month marks one year since the city of San Diego hiked up prices for special event parking within half a mile of Petco Park during games and special events.

Now city data shows they’re also racking up thousands of dollars in tickets given out in recent months.

“To get people downtown is a struggle as it is and if they’re going to get fined, they’re not going to want to come,” Heather Kline said.

Kline owns and operates several businesses in downtown San Diego, near Petco Park.

She is well acquainted with special event parking in the area.

Special Event Parking rules took effect last year, increasing meter rates to $10 within parking meters half a mile of Petco Park during games and special events for a total of six hours.

“We’ve had lots of issues with it,” Kline said.

City data shows from April to July, the number of special event parking fines jumped from 366 to 1,380.

In total, the city handed out $223,897.50 in special event tickets, according to city data. This is the total amount cited, not collected.

“I do have friends who have had to do it and didn’t even realize that it was special event parking, especially because the signs and the parking is so confusing, the apps don’t work, you can’t even pay for it, to me it’s a mess. The whole program is a mess and it wasn’t thought through,” Heather Kline said.

Special Event Parking was implemented a year ago as part of the city’s effort to help close the budget deficit gap.

Business owners like Todd Brown and San Diegans said they haven’t benefited from any of it.

Instead, they said it had the opposite effect.

“We don’t get the local business we used to get and we feel the impact, so when you throw in another measure like costly parking. It certainly does not help the situation,” Todd Brown owner of Bub’s said.  

The Padres back in January said in a statement, “At a time when the cost of living in San Diego is already high, the city’s special event parking policy places additional strain on fans, workers, and residents. We supportive or more fan-friendly and community-focused approaches of continued dialogue on this issue, as the current policy was established without input from impacted stakeholders, including the Padres.

Nine padres’ games are on the city’s list of special event parking for this month.