Parking- Malls vs downtowns

I have had this idea for a while now about parking. One of the consistent top 3 complaints of locals and visitors alike (in Stratford and in any other town in Ontario) is about parking. Can't find spots close to the stores, no parking at all, too expensive, why do we pay at all are some of the comments that often shared. While parking is a problem in any downtown, there is an understandable need from some control around parking. Problems such as the staff or business owners using prime parking to put their personal cars for an entire day or shift. Parking spots used up by extended users. Meters that don't give a good duration i.e. 2 hour meters when 3 or 4 would make more sense~ these are common problems in any city or town, just ask. But I have one real personal bugaboo~ while city councils feel the need to enforce parking meters on locals and visitors when they try to support downtown areas, why are malls, waaaaay out on the edge of any town, able to give free parking??? If they wanted to kill 2 birds with 1 stone, here's how: Charge for parking in any mall where they have say more than 50 parking spots in total, and use that money raised to go directly back to the municipality to pay for road services. Ooooooo no he didn't! Yep I did! Why do malls get to have vast fields of free parking (which is environmentally unsound to begin with) and yet city and town councils rape and pileage downtown cores by charging for parking? Is seems unfair to me and also seems like a reasonalbe way to recover some tax revenues and level the playing field between malls and downtown shopping areas. So, places like Wal Mart, Sears, Zellers and any mall, any shopping area with more than 50 parking spots (again this is a suggested amount) should have to charge it's customers. I'm good with that. Ok, there it is- any alternatives?