But it's Wednesday!

[on-reserve.livejournal.com]

Just a quick note to say that I was at Team Trivia last night at P.J. Ryans and when my friends and I left the pub at 12:15, we had tickets on our cars for street sweeping.

EXCEPT that street sweeping for Holland Street is on Mondays, not Wednesdays.

I actually caught the traffic guy writing tickets:

Me: Hey, are you writing tickets for street sweeping?
Him: Yeah.
Me: But it's Wednesday and this is a Monday street.
Him: Oh, ooops! Sorry about that.

He took my ticket back to void it (for which I gave him an earnest high-five) but said if anyone else got a ticket, they should just appeal it. There were at least several cars on the street with tickets so get on the appealing!

Edited to add: This post seems to have opened a wider discussion about over-zealous ticketing (as opposed to reasonable, above-board ticketing). I can't make it to the Mayor's office hours tonight but would love if someone, who has experienced something like this (invalid tickets/overdue notices with no ticket) would bring it up with him. Also, I do have the officer's badge number and last name (from my friend who left before her ticket could be voided) but don't think it's appropriate to humiliate him in a public forum.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_mattt/]

Funny, I read that and thought you said "major restraining".

I am all in favor of strict enforcement of parking rules. You'd never be able to find a parking space otherwise.

But there comes a point, in my opinion, where a line is crossed, and this is such a case.

This is also not the first time an incident like this has happened. I was towed for street sweeping about five years ago a few minutes before the 7:00am start time. Apparently, there was some class action or something, because I later got a check from the city refunding part of my money, but not all, and certainly none of my time and aggravation.

I wonder if unsuspecting people will simply pay the ticket?

The city needs to write a letter to those ticketed informing them not to pay and voiding their tickets. There's no appeal here as no parking law has been broken.

I feel this attitude of ticket first and ask questions later needs to be addressed. Better they spend their money repairing the awful Somerville roads and enforcing traffic laws.

[skexy.livejournal.com]

AAAHHH, but they're not spending money; they're makng it on this scam.

[on-reserve.livejournal.com]

Definitely. I don't know how much the ticketing people make (what is the modern term for "meter maid?") but I'm guessing it's $10-$15/hour. If they write ONE ticket per hour, they are making the city money.

Also, I think about the relationship between city government and local business.

PJ Ryans is open until 1. Ticketing people 10 minutes past midnight could potentially harm/hurt business if enough patrons get burned by it and decide not to risk it. It seems like it would be in the interest of good city-business relations to not be so aggressive and wait until 1am or so.