That's just not providing free parking. Banning it would be disallowing malls, stores, gas stations (heh) etc from providing parking without charging for it.

This is currently a hot potato in Norway. The local government wants to force malls to charge for their parking at rates to be decided by the government, but aren't allowed due to national regulation.

So there is a political battle to determine whether the law will be changed to allow it. The malls aren't at all happy about it, of course.

Can't the government just levy a tax per parking spot?

That is very cheap, if you want to rent a similar sized piece of land in the same place it costs orders of magnitude more. Just think about how much a restaurant with some tables on the sidewalk is paying.

Most of them are paying nothing. They got that space for free during covid and cities haven't taken it back yet.

That is a really cheap price for public land

I want my city to do this, because it will mean that people won't just store their unused cars on the streets, which means that it will be much easier for people who actually live here to park.

My council was incredibly fast to raise this for inflation. Literally back in March, they raised it from £100 to £107.

Greedy.