‘I Don’t Live in This Town’: Parking Ticket Appeals 

The following appeals were filed recently by and on behalf of motorists ticketed in New Canaan. Where provided, we are including information about individual tickets.

***

“I received a ticket for parking in a handicapped space. The town’s beautiful potted plant obscured the handicapped sign (I have a photo). My approach was a parallel parking so I did not see the painted sign on the street. Can you please consider my situation.
—$150 for disabled zone violation (New Canaan resident)

***

“Hi, I am writing to discuss a ticket that was left on my car Thursday, September 16 at the New Canaan Train Station. I am a new resident of New Canaan and recently moved during Covid. The few times I have taken the train, I checked was told the ‘pay to park’ was suspended. When I saw the ticket on my windshield, I realized parking was no longer free. However, I never saw any signs posted or anything around the parking lot about the change. When I’ve done something wrong, I always take responsibility and address the issue. In this case, I feel the ticket issued to me was in error. I would truly appreciate it if the ticket was repealed. Lastly, can you direct me to where I should go to read about parking rules/regulations in New Canaan.”

—New Canaan resident

***

“Parking sign designating parking on Elm Street ‘limited to 2 hours’ visible. ‘Loading zone’ sign covered by hanging plant. Have photograph.”

***

“I don’t live in this town and I didn’t see that the restrictions on the sign were limited to the hours after 11 AM. I was running late into pilates and there were others parked behind me so I thought it was the last legal parking spot on the street because everything else was full except for the handicapped parking spot in front of me.”

—Stamford resident 

***

“Please be advised that I am refuting this parking ticket as I was in the car at the time and there was no police officer who came around to the front of my car. As a matter of fact, I think they slipped it in rather sneakily from behind but I was right there so I’m not sure what occurred!!! Either way I should not have this ticket! Additionally when you review the parking ticket online, there are two pictures. One of them is NOT a picture of my car. So the information for the parking ticket is not correct.”

***

“I paid for one hour of parking on August 6th at 1:11 p.m. at space 146. I appeared back at my car at exactly 2:13 which was a whole 2 minutes past the one-hour limit to find a summons already on the windshield. I will grant you that I was 2 minutes late. There are a few interesting issues, however. First the fact that the ticket is time stamped at 2:13 p.m. which is precisely when I arrived back at my car. There was no officer anywhere near my car at the exact time of the ticket, 2:13 p.m. I can attest to that because I was at my car at 2:13 p.m., the ticket was already on my windshield and there were no traffic officers in sight. Quite odd. Even if you don’t trust my own time keeping, the ticket is indeed time stamped 2:13 p.m. Second, the fact that the officer issued the summons and printed it within two minutes of expiration leads me to believe he or she was ‘laying in wait’ for the expiration. I wonder how long it takes to actually execute the summons writing process. Let’s call it 90 seconds for argument’s sake. That means at the precise moment that the 60 minutes expired the officer would need to be standing at the ready, handheld ticket processor ready to go, and ‘immediately’ began the process. Those are the facts and yes, I will grant you that I was over by a whole two minutes but there was clearly no attempt on the part of the officer to, at a minimum, look around to see if anyone was approaching the vehicle if in fact, he or she was writing the ticket at that time and not earlier. Worse yet there appears to have been an attempt to stand and wait for the clock to expire on the 60 minutes, write the summons quickly and evaporate. I find it wholly impossible that the process for writing the ticket did not begin before the expiration of the 60 minutes. He or she had to be standing over the car and already processing the summons at the final minute or two expired. No other way it could have happened. Is that what we have become? The $25 is not the issue here. To call this ‘overzealous’ application of the parking code would be a kind assessment. This behavior is consistent with a town looking to aggravate its taxpayers and visitors as opposed to one that welcomes us. Whomever is training our traffic enforcement people should understand that these matters do matter to people. Whether this summons is enforced or not, at a minimum you instruct the zealots with summons writing capability to grant some form of grace period such that 90 seconds does not become the difference between a summons or not and that they not ‘target’ cars ‘about to be’ over time.”

—$25 for unpaid space in Playhouse Lot, at 2:13 p.m. on Aug. 6 (New Canaan resident)