Tensions rise as Uber Eats drivers and shop owners clash over restaurant strip parking

FRUSTRATED shop owners on a popular Hobart restaurant strip are calling out Uber Eats drivers for clogging up prime car park spaces and blatantly ignoring road rules.

Uber Eats drivers parked on Elizabeth St, outside Taste of Asia, waiting for an order to come through.

FRUSTRATED shop owners on a popular Hobart restaurant strip are calling out Uber Eats drivers for clogging up prime car park spaces and blatantly ignoring road rules.

Agitated North Hobart shop owners and Uber drivers are having verbal altercations along Elizabeth St as the fight for parking spots escalates and business owners are forced to act as traffic controllers.

North Hobart Traders president John Kelly will request an urgent meeting with Hobart City Council to address the problem.

Uber Eats launched in Hobart in May and offers a service where customers can order food from local restaurants online or on a smart phone app and the food is delivered for a small delivery fee.

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Mr Kelly said a lack of parking spaces was being compounded by Uber Eats drivers clogging up parking spaces in Elizabeth St as they wait for customer orders to arrive on the app, sometimes for more than an hour.

“The traders are not opposed to this new delivery service but we do object to Uber Eats drivers using the prime parking spaces as a holding bay,” he said.

North Hobart Traders Association president John Kelly. Picture: SAM ROSEWARNE

Taste of Asia owner Daniel Ryan said outside his restaurant there was a five-minute parking area and 30-minute parking, which Uber Eats drivers were ignoring.

“I had four Uber Eats drivers at the front of my business and I asked them to move on,” he said. “A lady came in and said ‘thank you, I’ve been circling the block three times and can’t find any parking’.”

Winning’s Newsagency owner Garry Martin said an incident last weekend between a shop owner and Uber driver required police intervention and the situation was getting “bad”.

Hobart Alderman Marti Zucco said carparking in the North Hobart strip was already at peak levels due to the inaction by the council.

“Should there be further issues requiring police the blame can only lay with the council aldermen who have failed to deliver the needs of the North Hobart ratepayers,” he said.

Hobart deputy mayor candidate Simon Behrakis said he had spoken to a few traders in North Hobart who wanted something done immediately.

“This is just another symptom of the lack of parking in the North Hobart area and of a council that is asleep at the wheel,” he said.

Last month, the council rejected calls for an expressions of interest for Condell Place car park to be transformed into a multi-level residential block and expanded car park lot.