Instead of controlling the valet companies and fining those who are breaking the law (Probably all of them), the Ministry of Interior & Tourism agreed in a joint statement to fix the valet service price at 5000 Lebanese Liras. Fixing the price sounds great on paper but it will not solve anything on the ground.
What’s gonna happen when the valet asks for more? Who are you going to call? The Tourism Police? Does the Smoking Ban Law ring any bell here? No one is able to enforce such a decision because most of the valet companies are well connected and couldn’t give a damn about over charging their customers or even breaking the law. Just drive around Solidere at night during the weekend and see how valet guys double & triple parallel park their cars, cut off people, force you to park elsewhere even when it’s a public parking pot and even harass you if needed.
Enforcing such a law is a nightmare during the day and especially at night and will never work. Once again the real problem is not the price, but the fact that valet companies are all over. Only hotels, fancy places and maybe wedding venues or venues that don’t have any parking plots around them should offer this service, otherwise valet should be forbidden. That’s what the Tourism & Interior Ministries should be working on: Organizing this whole valet mess and restricting the service to specific places only.
