City leaders in Gloucester, Massachusetts, are apologizing after families faced serious beach parking problems over the weekend.
Many beachgoers heading to Wingaersheek Beach said they were turned away, even after using the online parking system to pay in advance and reserve their parking spots.
"They actually had people walking up the roads, saying, 'You have to turn around, even if you have reservations, you have to turn around,'" explained Ron Schmidt.
He said he had a car full of family members and food at the time.
"A lot of angry people," Schmidt said. "A lot of people making U-turns, sticking their hands out the window giving the finger, and the poor people at the gates, they just looked like — they even said, 'We've had the worst day ever.'"
Some people told NBC10 Boston on Monday that they drove more than an hour with plans to beach it.
Schmidt said he saw available parking spots.
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"They kept saying, 'We're oversold, we're oversold,' but there were cars in droves heading out and they weren't going to be flexible about it," he recalled.
According to Mayor Greg Verga, officials met on Monday to discuss what went wrong.
"The last thing we want to do is have people who paid ahead of time to come find out after a long drive that they haven't had a spot," he said. "It's not fun. Every person in Gloucester has their birthright to use the beaches. We certainly weren't anticipating this, we're not happy about it."
According to Verga, the issue didn't stem from a reservation error for non-residents, but rather from overcrowding.
"It doesn't appear we overbooked, oversold those spots," he said. "The problem is we had a lot more residents show up than is typical. So if we have 500 spots set aside for the paying customers, and 500 plus for the residents, we just had a lot more than that thousand that showed up that day."
Still, many are calling for a better system so that everyone who pays can park.
"You have to come up with a better way to deal with the people who have come and left so other people can replace them," said Schmidt. "I think that would help the organization."
The city of Gloucester is now issuing refunds to beachgoers who paid in advance for parking but were turned away from the beach.
"We just don't want people to feel like they got ripped off in any way," said Verga. "Whether it's the locals or the non-residents."
Verga added that people can contact the mayor's office to get their money back.
