A visitor, who did not wish to be named, said that on Monday, September 2 several car owners returned from an exciting whale watching tour to see parking notices on their cars in Market St.

"We had an awesome tour on the boat; there were couples from Sydney, Melbourne, from Wagga Wagga and a young couple who was travelling around who all had $115 fines," the visitor said.

"It was a Monday morning, off season and the only cars there were owned by the people on the boat. We had been intending to stop and have lunch after the tour, but this left a really bad taste as it did for the others," the visitor said.

Jessica Millar, owner of Merimbula Whale Watching Tours with her husband Simon, said she felt the one-hour parking restriction was too short.

"I understand the rules, but I do think that one-hour parking in an area where there are not many shop fronts, is too short," Ms Millar said.

"In summer when it's very busy I can understand that council needs to move people on, but this is off-peak when it's hard enough to get people to come to town and the street is empty anyway. They were probably the only cars in the road," she added.

Parking was one of the major concerns raised at the Merimbula Chamber of Commerce meeting which attracted around 150 people to the Merimbula RSL Club on Thursday, August 30.

There were calls to reinstate parking in Market St, something for which new chamber president Nigel Ayling said he would advocate.

Butcher David Goodall said that with the redevelopment of the old Woolworths site parking had become a major issue that had affected his business.

"I look out and see that car park (next to the underground parking) is full of people who work in town," Mr Goodall said.

Developer of the old Woolworths site Bruce Marshall said he hadn't taken formal possession of the site, but would in "the next week or two".

"We will get the car park (the underground car park) open as quickly as possible," Mr Marshall told the meeting.