Jim O'Briant

To the editor:News travels fast. Thanks to a message posted this morning on an RV-related Internet discussion group, I'm reading Tuesday morning's Conway Daily Sun in my living room in California, and it's not yet noon here. My interest is in today's article about RVers who camp in your local Wal-Mart parking lot. I'm an RVer (though not a "full-timer") who is active in several online RV-related discussion groups. Some of these exist primarily to allow RVers to share information on locations where RVers are or aren't allowed to park overnight, for one night only, while on a long journey to a distant destination. I operate one of these discussion groups, the "OvernightRVParking" Yahoo Group. Most of these discussion groups draw a clear distinction between "parking" overnight and "camping."When an RVer is on a multi-day trip to a distant place, it's important that he/she not drive while tired or sleepy. Thus, it's equally important that the RVer be able to stop, park and sleep for several hours in order to be able to continue safely the next morning. This isn't dissimilar from a common practice of long-haul truckers, who pull over where it's legal to do so and sleep in the sleeping compartments of their tractors. Many businesses have a nationwide policy of welcoming RVers who would like to park overnight in their parking lots for this purpose. Wal-Mart, Flying J Truck Stops and Cracker Barrel Country Stores are probably the best known of these, but there are many others as well. In some parts of the country, municipalities provide RV spaces, with or without hookups, in city parks.When an Rver's plans include only a stop of several hours to sleep, there's no need for such things as swimming pools, horseshoe pits, game rooms, craft classes and the other amenities provided by many commercial campgrounds and RV parks. And there's no need to pay for those amenities, either, if one isn't going to use them. There are also issues when campgrounds aren't open all year, or when their office isn't open past the early evening hours to provide check-in services for RVs who may arrive late in the evening.Thus, when communities pass ordinances that prohibit an RVer from sleeping in his RV for such purposes, RVers simply don't stop in that community. They'll plan their trip so as to stop overnight elsewhere, for example at a store in another town down the road, and they'll buy food, fuel and other supplies in the community where they stop. (It's a common RVer joke that "free" overnight parking in these places is anything but free. We often spend far more on restaurant meals, fuel, groceries and other supplies than we'd pay to stay overnight in a commercial campground.)From a community's standpoint, there is also the important issue of RVers who try to abuse the overnight parking privilege that is so graciously extended by many businesses. They don't park, they set up camp extending slide out rooms, unfurling awnings, and setting out lawn furniture and BBQ grills in the parking lot. This isn't parking, it's camping, and it isn't what these businesses intend. There are also those who instead of parking for a night will try to set up housekeeping for several days or weeks in a parking lot. This isn't what the host businesses intend, either, nor is it what a community wants.I certainly understand the need for Conway and other municipalities to take the necessary legal steps to prohibit the kinds of abuses that I described in the paragraph above. However, I hope that the Conway Board of Selectmen will enforce, and, if necessary, amend your local ordinance in such a way that you don't throw the baby out with the bath water.The vast majority of RVers are responsible good citizens. When we need a night's sleep on a long journey, we graciously avail ourselves of the invitation to park overnight in a parking lot and get some sleep so that we can drive safely the next day. We wouldn't consider setting up camp and grilling out in someone's parking lot, and we're appalled at the thought of emptying our waste holding tanks anyplace but in a designated RV dump station. When we plan on staying in a location for more than just sleeping overnight, we use campgrounds. In short, we believe that camping should be done in campgrounds, while parking may be done in other places where parking is allowed.RVers also communicate continually via the Internet. When a city or town passes a law that prohibits overnight RV parking, tens of thousands of RVers know about it within days or even hours. The general reaction is this: "If Anytown, USA doesn't want me to park overnight there, I won't. But I also won't stop there, or buy anything there. I'll take my money and spend it in a city where I'm welcome." Two cities that have faced widely publicized RVer boycotts in the past couple of years are Laughlin, Nev., and Billings, Mont. In both cases, the adverse nationwide publicity led the cities to discard the idea of an outright ban in favor of an ordinance that prohibited the abuses described above while still welcoming responsible, good-citizen RVers to park overnight in their city and spend their money there. In the case of Billings, Mont., the publicity also led the nearby city of Laurel, Mont., to require that their new Wal-Mart allow overnight RV parking (but not camping) as a condition of receiving the building permit. Laurel, Mont., was eager to have the tourist dollars that Billings was going to drive away.I hope that the Town of Conway will consider allowing RVers to park (not camp) overnight (perhaps with a parking limit of 16 or 24 hours) in commercial parking lots with the permission of the business owner or manager. Allowing similar parking in your municipal parking lot would also go a long way to spread the word that Conway is an "RV-friendly" community that wants the tourist dollars that RVers spend.I believe that if the Town of Conway adopts this approach welcoming responsible RVers and their travel dollars while outlawing undesirable behaviors by the irresponsible few it will pay dividends in terms of positive nationwide publicity in the RVing community and more tourist dollars spent in your community.