I know that in Boulder (CO), the downtown parking spaces that are on the street are owned by the city, and merchants were paying people to feed people's meters b/c they felt parking tickets were driving people away.

Edit: I should put this in context:

The merchants felt the city (which collects sales tax revenue) would benefit by subsidizing parking, which allows for more traffic and theoretically leads to increased sales (more tax dollars). The city saw parking tickets as a greater source of revenue, and felt increasing enforcement was the better plan. The merchants paid meter-feeders selectively, so as to encourage locals who are a more consistent source of revenue.