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PARROT PARKING
Jimmy, where’s my car?
BY MELISSA OSTROW

Warning, Bostonians. If you have a car in the city, you’d better be clairvoyant. The Boston Transportation Department (BTD) may hang a NO STOPPING sign next to your car and then tow it. At least that’s what happened to me during the recent Jimmy Buffett parking ban. According to BTD spokesperson Tracey Ganiatsos, the city towed a total of 50 cars from Kenmore/Fenway’s temporary Margaritaville (17 on Friday and 33 on Sunday) and handed out 1967 parking tickets (854 on Friday and 1113 on Sunday).

At 11 a.m. on Sunday, I parallel parked on Brookline Avenue (I was not alone), checked the meter, remembered it was Sunday, and headed off to an open house at the New England School of Photography. When I returned at 2:15 p.m., I found special-event no-parking signs on every meter but no trace of my car, which, another sign told me, had been towed to the city lot.

I spotted a tow truck. The driver was pleasant; he gave me a ride and told me that at noon, the BTD had noted that the signs had been torn down, presumably by drunks from the local bars. But later, no one at the BTD would confirm or deny that.

Michael Devine, shop foreman in the sign department, told me that the signs were posted Thursday but "may have been taken down." According to Devine, the sign department went out at 7 a.m. on Sunday to put up signs. When I informed him that there were definitely no signs up when I parked, he said there was no way of knowing what time the signs were hung.

According to everyone I asked at the BTD, I should have known about the parking ban because it was mentioned in Buffett-concert previews in both the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald. But if you don’t like Jimmy or don’t read newspapers, you wouldn’t know unless there was a sign.

So far, my failure to read up on the show has cost me $75 for the tow and $3 for the hour my car was in the city lot (the rate is $3 per hour, maxing out at $18 dollars per day). And still I have a $75 ticket to deal with. Tom McDonough, a manager at the parking clerk’s office, told me that I could request a hearing to appeal the ticket, and a hearing officer would decide my fate. That means I have to mail in the ticket, wait to receive a titular hearing date, and then appear at City Hall between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. any day from five days before to 10 days after that date. McDonough assured me the hearing would take only 15 minutes, but it’s first come, first served, and for those who don’t work in the area, it could be a real pain.

But another BTD official encouraged me to appeal, saying, "We have a good history of giving people the benefit of the doubt."

Meanwhile, I’d love some company. If the same thing happened to you, get in touch at mostrow[a]phx.com.


Issue Date: September 17 - 23, 2004
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