Municipal officials last week upheld a $50 ticket issued to a New Canaan man who had double-parked outside an Elm Street restaurant on a Tuesday afternoon in May.
In pleading his case to the Parking Commission, Gayle Sanders said that he was “returning some lights to Rosie’s restaurant” that had been used at a catered event.
“I had parked, double-parked right next to the restaurant,” Sanders said during his appeal hearing, held Thursday via videoconference.
“I tucked in, there wasn’t any traffic and I put my blinker lights on, and carried the box in and then returned back to my car. I couldn’t have been more than one minute in the whole process. I didn’t speak to anyone. I didn’t loiter. I just dropped the boxes and returned to my car. Unbeknownst to me I guess the parking attendant was right there and was writing a ticket as I was returning to my car.”
Sanders added that he has “seen precedent with UPS delivery trucks and people picking up to-go items and doing the same thing.”
“And since there is no specific signage, I just assumed that it would be OK to rush this back into Rosie’s and come back out,” he said.
Yet there’s a “No parking” sign on a lamppost adjacent to where Sanders parked, and if everyone thought it was OK to double-park in order to run errands—even small ones—the downtown would be even more chaotic, commissioners said. They voted 3-0 to uphold the ticket, issued at 12:23 p.m. on May 18.
“I don’t think parking in the middle of the street in front of a store is a good idea,” Commissioner Peter Ogilvie said. “The fact that there is a ‘No parking’ sign right here and an alleyway, I just can’t see any excuse for this.”
Ogilvie and Commissioners Laura Budd and Jennifer Donovan voted to uphold the ticket. Commissioner Drew Magratten was absent.
Chair Keith Richey had recused himself, saying, “Gayle Sanders is one of my best friends in town and a I am a bit of a witness because he is going to refer to a party that he had at the restaurant Rosie’s caterer.”
“It was a birthday party for his wife and I attended that party,” Richey continued during a rather lengthy recusal. “And also I was at Rosie’s and also talked to Matt, the fellow he got the signature from who did affirm that Mr. Sanders just came in to drop off a carton of a few things, I guess lighting equipment that Rosie’s had left at his party.”
Later in the meeting, when Donovan asked whether there was a 5-minute grace period rule for those who double-park, the recused Richey said, “No, there is no formal or informal grace period. I mean you might say that historically like this man is, if you are like delivering things, then we have typically allowed people to double-park—in fact, today I was at Rosie’s there was a truck pretty much where his car is that was double-parked and making deliveries to Rosie’s.”
Donovan asked whether the town’s parking enforcement officers ticket delivery drivers who are double-parked.
Parking Manager Stacy Miltenberg said, “In certain instances we do, if they double park and they are blocking the flow traffic and we can’t move them or if they are away from their vehicle, we do, we have in the past. I will say if this gentleman was seen actually leaving the vehicle I know the officer would’ve suggested he park some place else. What they probably came upon was an empty vehicle, double-parked and did not see anybody there. Is how it happens.”
Sanders responded, “That’s possible.”
“I find that hard to imagine,” he continued. “I mean I—we all know Rosie’s restaurant. I carried a box into Rosie’s restaurant with some bulbs. They said put that at the back wall. I put it in the back wall. I turned and briskly walked back to my car for that very reason. So maybe she found an empty car but I find that highly unlikely.”
Budd asked whether Sanders was saying the officer waited until he was walking back out of the restaurant to write the ticket.
He said, “I am suggesting that I was not in there long enough for her to be able to write a ticket. That she didn’t wait. She was writing the ticket when I cam out.”
Budd said it seems as though the hearing officer came upon an empty double-parked car on Elm Street and that Sanders “just had really bad timing.”
“The timing was just it couldn’t have been worse for you,” she said.
During the Commission’s deliberations, Budd said she understood that it was “very frustrating” for Sanders to be ticketed while running a “10-second errand.”
“The barriers have taken away some of those spots on that side of the street,” she said. “The good news is, it’s allowed for outdoor dining and expanded all those restaurants’ capability there. So I am personally very torn on this. Because I hate to see anyone who is patronizing a downtown business get slammed. But at the same time, I don’t want to open up a pandora’s box.”