In January Aloha Tower Marketplace was involved in the second bankruptcy action of its troubled 8-year existence. No small wonder. No Aloha in the
Tower parking lotRecently my husband and I spent a large chunk of a beautiful afternoon at the Marketplace. We met some friends for lunch, which stretched on for about 212 hours. That broke up and we still had a lovely sunny day and no place to rush off to, so we poked around the shops.
It was a lot of fun. We found a couple of birthday presents for friends and a silly toy for our dog.
We soon noticed the 3-hour validation we got at lunch wasn't going to cut it, so we got another stamp as we checked out at one of the shops.
I don't really blame the clerk for not telling us it wasn't going to do any good. It's not her policy, and why deal with grumpy customers when you are powerless to help them? Of course, it would have saved us a little money if she'd piped up.
What we finally found out as we left the parking lot, about 412 after getting there, was that only the first stamp counts. After having spread money around at several Marketplace tenants for most of the afternoon, it cost us $9 to leave.
As bad as I feel for the businesses coping with this idiotic system, Aloha Tower's parking lot will never get another dime out of me.
Stephanie Kendrick