Right Juris

The City of Toledo Ohio has issued parking tickets to citizens parked in their own driveways. Apparently in Toledo there is an ordinance that says that to park on private property it has to be on a paved pad, if not then you’re going to get a parking ticket for parking in your own driveway. Really?!? Are you kidding me?

This is a joke. If you watch the clip it shows that at least one of the tickets was issued after the enforcement officer entered fenced off areas to walk to the car and place the ticket on the windshield. The person issuing the ticket was not a police officer, but was an employee of the Streets and Bridges department of Toledo. Below is a clip from a Toledo News Station explaining the situation.

This is amazing to me that parking tickets are being issued to vehicles parked in homeowners driveways. I understand that cities have ordinances and codes which are meant to prevent properties from becoming eyesores, and you can’t just park 17 cars on your front lawn and expect that to be okay, but I’ve never heard of a situation where a single car parked on a gravel driveway would be cause for a ticket.

The story, reported on the Toledo Fox Affiliate, quotes Mayor Carty Finkbeiner (seems like an appropriate name don’t you think?):

“They broke the law. That’s why you write a ticket,” Mayor Finkbeiner said.

The Finkbeiner administration denies the parking fines are a way to collect money to help defray the city’s over $15 million budget deficit.

Of course they are denying it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. I denied stealing cookies from the cookie jar when I was a kid, even when I had crumbs all over my face, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t take the cookies. It seems pretty obvious that this was a move by the administration to generate a little extra revenue.

There is one hero in this whole story, City Councilman D. Michael Collins, who collected the tickets from the residents and vowed to take care of this for them, even if it means that he pays the tickets himself. The best part about this is that the city has abolished the board which hears complaints about parking tickets, so there is no place to appeal the decision of the worker who issued the ticket. Last time I checked America still had rights of due process, but I could be wrong.

So remember folks, before you move to Toledo Ohio make sure that you don’t commit the heinous crime of parking in your driveway. You’re a criminal if you do and you deserve to be ticketed. Those Toledo Ohio parking tickets can get pretty nasty. According to the illustrious Mayor Finkbeiner if you get a parking ticket for parking in your own driveway, you deserved it.