After submitting a petition to the city to crack down on commuters and Winslow store employees using downtown parking, island business owners asked the Bainbridge Island City Council Monday to begin addressing the problem by reducing the parking time limit on Winslow Way to one hour.

City Manager Doug Schulze also suggested devoting spaces at the police station to parking for the public and Winslow Way employees.

Despite the suggestions, though, the city council asked for more work to be done.

“I’m concerned about cutting down to one hour in terms of what that might mean for patrons who take longer than one hour to make up their minds about pieces of furniture or a piece of jewelry or to eat a meal,” said Mayor Anne Blair.

Sixty business owners signed a petition that calls for new time limits on downtown parking spaces, as well as an ordinance that would give tickets and fines to downtown employees who park on Winslow Way.

Merchants said customers have trouble finding places to park.

In many cases, the problem stems from commuters who park their cars at 3 p.m. and leave them there because the three-hour limit ends at 6 p.m.

In other cases, business owners said, store employees park on Winslow and move their vehicle to a different spot every three hours.

Marcia C. Wicktom, a downtown property owner, sent the petition to the city of Bainbridge Island in September, and included a survey on the offending cars of employees and commuters, complete with license plate numbers, who have been clogging up downtown parking spaces.

At Avalara, she said, workers don’t have enough room for parking at their Winslow Way building. Despite attempts by Avalara management and the downtown association to solve the problem, the trouble still persists. A suggestion to have employees park on the other side of downtown, by Eagle Harbor Congregational Church, proved unworkable.

All but one of the downtown merchants surveyed want parking restricted to two hours, with the sole merchant who disagreed instead advocating a one-hour limit.

Marti Lawrence-Grant, part owner of That’s A Some Pizza, told the council Monday that the pizza parlor’s busy dinner hour begins around 5 and 6 p.m, just as the parking time limit ends.

“So that means those spaces are clogged by people that aren’t even on the island,” Lawrence-Grant said of commuters utilizing the parking in front of her business.

Lawrence-Grant and owners at businesses adjacent to That’s A Some Pizza have asked that parking on their side of the street be reduced to one hour and parking across the street be reduced to two hours.

They have also asked that the regulation be in effect until 8 p.m. every day, instead of 6 p.m.

To accommodate for the changes in parking hours, Schulze said, parking at the Bainbridge Island Police Department can be divided to include Winslow Way customer and employee spaces.

Eighteen out of the 61 spaces would be used for employees, police station guests, police vehicles and overflow visitor parking.

Another eight spaces would be available for customers, three of which as handicap parking.

The lot could also provide 20 spaces for monthly rented parking.

Some on the council were not sold on a one-hour time limit for on-street parking, hoever.

“One of the things that concerns me is that when we go get dinner or get a glass of wine, we do take longer than an hour,” Blair said.

“One hour seems to really push it for people to be patrons, when there’s dining involved,” she said.

Blair directed Schulze to prompt a second conversation with business owners, since most on the petition requested a two-hour limit on parking.