Portsmouth offers free downtown parking for holiday season

This three week parking ban is just awesome!  As a resident of Portsmouth, I routinely get stressed out by the holiday seasons because they mean three things for me: tourists, crowds, and (with a car available to me) paid parking.  I hate paying for parking because I frequently forget how long I paid to park which, understandably, results in expensive parking tickets for me.  Because I get a lot of presents from stores in downtown, the parking ban is simply superb because I can do all my shopping without trying to figure out how much I can spend on gifts by subtracting how much I spent on parking.  However, I learned from this article that the town plan a loss of $30,000 per week of the parking ban into their yearly budget.  Although the town doesn't really lose any money, I had no idea how much money parking brought to Portsmouth.  I also think that this ban will bring in more shoppers which might help to counterbalance that $30,000 per week loss.  Happy Holidays to Portsmouth!!!