Town officials on Wednesday night upheld a $50 ticket issued to a Ridgefield woman for parking on a sidewalk alongside the Locust Avenue Lot.
Here’s the parking job. Parking Bureau photo
Allison Butash told members of the Parking Commission during an appeal hearing that she didn’t know she’d hopped the granite curb and parked on the brick sidewalk near the Post Office.
“I apparently went over the curb and it’s a very small curb so I didn’t even know I had gone over it, and apparently in doing so the back of my car was mostly on the sidewalk,” Butash said during the hearing, held via videoconference. “But I was more concerned with the front part of my car, because I didn’t want it to block the turn-in to the parking lot and the fire hydrant that was there. So I completely had no idea I was on the curb when I left my car. I didn’t turn around, I didn’t look. I went to my pilates class.”
Noting that the fire hydrant in question is located in the Locust Lot itself, more than 10 feet from the parking space, Commissioners Nancy Bemis, Kevin Karl, Katie O’Neill and Marley Thackray voted 4-0 in favor of upholding the ticket. The appointed body has one open seat.
During deliberations, Bemis said, “It’s too bad but there are still stripes. It’s like how could you get out of your car and not see the stripes?”
During the hearing, Butash saw the parking enforcement officer’s photo of her Audi SUV and said, “Oh my god. I had no idea. Seriously.”
Asked by O’Neill during the hearing whether she has a rear camera on her car, Butash said, “I do but I shut it off because it annoys me. Because it beeps, so I don’t even use it.”
O’Neill responded with a smile, saying, “Oh. Well, you should.”
Butash said during the hearing, “It was a completely honest mistake. I had no idea.”
O’Neill said later, “We do understand that it was an innocent mistake. Unfortunately it does only carry so much weight, but we do understand that.”
Thackray noted that the parking spot itself is awkward, given that it’s a single space tucked in at the entrance to the Locust Avenue Lot.
“It’s kind of a terrible spot,” she said, adding to Butash: “I think you did the right thing by not blocking the driveway.”
Parking Manager Stacy Miltenberg said the space has been in place for years and this is the first time she recalled a motorist having an issue with it.
Butash said during the hearing, “A warning would have been nice.”