Does this really make any sense?

The City of New Orleans has many events that take place in areas where, for years, people have been parking on medians in the streets. The city has decided to begin enforcing “No Parking” regulations in these areas. So they put up some signs and then wrote over 1000 tickets during the event.

The organizers said that perhaps they could have been more aggressive in telling people not to park in the areas but likewise (and I love this one) the city parking manager said that the organizers “didn’t ask us to tell people not to park there.” What is that all about?

If the city has parking enforcement on site (they were clearing streets for a marathon) shouldn’t they mention to people that they will get a ticket if they park in a certain area? Or did the fact that the tickets generated nearly $90,000 have anything to do with it.

The city says “no” but you have to wonder. They say that the money doesn’t mitigate the bad publicity they received.

What were they thinking? If publicity was a problem, wouldn’t the good publicity of having officers mention to people that they were breaking the law and would get tickets have told a different story.

A quote from the local public works director in charge of parking:

“There is no event where we’re gonna allow parking on the median in the city of New Orleans. It’s just not gonna ever happen anymore,”

And another:

“This revenue isn’t worth negative publicity. We don’t want to be in this position. The problem is, this has happened to us before, events are going on, people are doing things illegal, so our only option is to just issue that citation,”

Balderdash – you always have choices. You could choose to provide parking in the area by charging for parking during events. You could elect to put up additional signage during events. You could provide warnings before tickets are written. The list is endless.

Its things like this that ruin the reputation of our industry and are the source of the moniker “Parking Nazi.”

JVH