Secretly private parking spots a cash cow for the city
No signs to warn drivers of restricted spaces, but that ticket on their windshield does the trick
A parking lot in a waterfront park with a restricted-access section, and not so much as a sign to warn drivers.
You can fight the ticket but may be told to pay part of it anyway, even if you can prove there’s nothing to alert people to the parking restrictions.
It’s a lesson Yehudah Franken learned after he parked in the middle of the west parking lot at Marie Curtis Park, at Lake Shore Boulevard and 42nd Street, and returned to his vehicle to find a $100 ticket on it.
He was far from alone. Franken sent me photos of the area where he parked that showed other vehicles tagged with similar tickets for parking in an area designated only for vehicles with boat trailers attached.
“Great cash cow for the city at $100 per ticket,” he said in an email, noting he was in the process of “contesting a ticket that should never have been issued.”
The large parking lot on the west side of the park is next to a boat launch on Etobicoke Creek, where it runs into Lake Ontario. It’s heavily used, with parking needed for many vehicles with boat trailers hooked to them.
Diagonal parking spaces in the middle of the lot are “apparently for vehicles (towing) boat trailers,” he said. “I say apparently because it’s secret. There is no signage to that effect.”
The absence of signs designating the middle spaces for vehicles with trailers led him to believe he could park there, so he pulled into one last July 16 and went on his way.
When he got back, his vehicle and others without trailers in the middle were tagged with tickets that identified the offence as parking in a “designated space contrary to posted conditions.”
“The issuing officer was still there and I spoke with him at length,” he said.
“He acknowledged the lack of signage but since there is supposed to be signage there he was under orders to issue tickets.
“He told me he had brought up the matter of missing signage the year before but nothing was done. I told him it was unethical for him to do this but I was wasting my breath.”
The west parking lot was closed for the winter when I was there last week. I toured it on foot and couldn’t find any signs alerting drivers to restrictions for the middle spaces.
Franken challenged the charge at the city’s parking tribunal and finally had a remote WebEx hearing on Jan. 7.
He emailed to say “My ticket was lowered to $30, which I said was still unfair but I didn’t seem to have much choice.
“The clerk asked me what I was willing to settle for and I said I wanted the whole $100 cancelled. Even settling for $1 was not right. Although I stood my ground, he said $30 and that’s it.”
He thinks the city should “cancel any tickets to all who parked there (last) summer and post signs, if that’s how it should be.”
Status: I sent the city an email that included Franken’s note and got a reply from parks, forestry and recreation that said: “City staff have been working with Toronto Police Service (TPS) Parking on this situation. A number of tickets were cancelled by TPS as a result of insufficient signage.
“The Marie Curtis Park boat launch area is intended for mixed use parking. This includes vehicles with trailers and stand-alone vehicles without trailers. As Marie Curtis Park has insufficient signage pertaining to the ‘Truck And Trailer’ stipulation, vehicles will only be ticketed if they are not in an actual parking spot. As this parking lot confusion has been resolved with TPS, additional signage will not be required.”
OK, but what about the many people who got a $100 ticket and paid up instead of fighting it? There could easily be hundreds of them.
Since the city says it cancelled at least some tickets due to “insufficient signage,” then doesn’t it owe every victim — and that’s what they are — a full refund? To keep their dough now seems larcenous. WHAT’S BROKEN IN YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD? WHEREVER YOU ARE IN