Dressing up to park?

Last Friday, I discussed the problem of parking spaces at Spotlight Verlag: too few spaces for the number of people who come to work by car.

I also looked at some of the possible solutions. Should the parking spaces be allocated on the basis of seniority, length of service or family status? No, I decided. First come, first served is best.

The problem with allocating parking spaces to particular people is that you need to re-allocate the spaces when these people are on holiday, ill or on a business trip. The bureaucracy involved would be horrific, and the danger is that parking spaces would be left unused.

Spotlight Verlag is, of course, not the only company with a parking problem. Many firms and restaurants have a limited number of parking spaces for their customers.

Often, the word "patrons" rather than "customers" is used on signs ("for patrons only"). But last year in Germany, I saw a restaurant using a different English word on the bilingual sign in its car park.

I hadn't seen the word before and I couldn't find it in my dictionary. But it suggested that the only people who could park there were those dressed in a costume — Lederhosen, perhaps?

Or maybe it was just a spelling mistake...