The 2012 lucky loonie the Royal Canadian Mint has been advertising wasn't so lucky for the city earlier this year.

As bylaw manager Dave Pruden explained in an interview Friday, the city had to bring in a technician from Edmonton last month to calibrate its parking meters so they would accept the 2012 loonies and toonies.

The mint unveiled new $1 and $2 coins in April with new security features using multi-ply plated steel technology that makes them more resistent and long-lasting.

Initially, there weren't a lot of the new coins being used in the city and it didn't appear there was a problem with the parking meters.

It was later discovered that the meters weren't registering the new editions of the coins so the technician was brought in to fix them so they would register the new coins for parking.

"They're all up to speed,” Pruden said of the meters.

He's heard of vending machines experiencing similar problems.

While the bylaw manager didn't have exact figures available, he noted it cost less than $10,000 to bring the technician up from Edmonton to have the work done.

Any project costing more than $10,000 has to be approved by council.