Move Your Damn Car!

[Jay 2K Winger]

Forgot about this one, otherwise I'd have added it to my previous post.

So it was Monday. JB (I think I'll start calling him "Hoss," it's the nickname I use for him at work too) and I were outside doing carts. It had been raining earlier, but had stopped, but it was damn cold out and windy besides.

We've brought in a few trains of carts and are just preparing our last load for inside, and we're about to cross the service road in front of the store when we see that a woman has parked her car in the loading zone and gone inside. Hoss shouts at her to come back, but she either ignores him or doesn't realize he's calling after her, and goes on inside. So we have to park the train while Hoss goes in to get CR to radio up front to have the woman paged back up to the door to move her car.

She eventually does respond a few minutes later, and defends herself with "I just had a return." No shit, lady? That doesn't excuse parking in the loading zone. There are times I wish the cops patrolled the lots in our shopping center for parking violations and hand out tickets.

[Mnemjian]

Well she does need to load her inflated sense of self-importance in and out of the car, that probably gets tiring after a while

[EricKei]

The worst part is, if your train of carts just happened to hit her unoccupied, illegally parked car, YOU would be the one in trouble >_<

[RxBoy]

The worst part is, if your train of carts just happened to hit her unoccupied, illegally parked car, YOU would be the one in trouble >_<

I think you are right about that. Legally, I would certainly imagine that the store would not be held responsible for damage to her car, as she was not parked legally. However, we all know how management is these days, and I'm sure they would quickly pay for any damage to the woman's car and give her tons of gift cards and crap for her trouble. And of course the employee would be in a lot of trouble, too for not waiting on her to come back out.

[Bloodsoul]

Our lot has a patrol car come by every so often; aside from emergency vehicles, we only allow people parking in the loading/fire zones if they're, well, loading. Granted, I wish we could tie the Christmas trees to cars in the actual loading zone and not the fire lane infront of the entrance; way too much traffic there and I figure it's only a matter of time before something bad's gonna happen.

Still wish people wouldn't park their cars in the loading/fire zones and dissapear for tens of minutes, though.

[An Haddock]

She eventually does respond a few minutes later, and defends herself with "I just had a return." No shit, lady? That doesn't excuse parking in the loading zone. There are times I wish the cops patrolled the lots in our shopping center for parking violations and hand out tickets.

People abuse the loading zone/fire zones all the time, unfortunately. (okay - myself included, when the parking lot in the local convenience store was full) As I type this, there's a mac semi across the street from us parked in a no-parking zone so they can make a delivery to the convenience store. No one usually says a word about that, though. I guess the store is enough of an "anchor" in our town that they let them get away with it.

What DOES piss me off, though, is when the delivery guys park over top the handicapped space right next to the no-parking zone, because it's a whopping 15 feet less that they have to walk to get into the back of the store. And, unfortunately, the cops never seem to do anything about it. I don't want to complain and get our store into hot water.

[Magpie]

The driver of the student access van (our campus has a lot of stairs, so if you're mobility impaired they'll drive you from class to class so you can make it in the 10 minutes) chewed out a delivery driver for using the reserved/handicapped parking by our campus centre. It was beautiful. He didn't accept "but I do this all the time" or "I'm only going to be a minute" or anything of the sort. Just kept explaining that he needed the spot, and that it was clearly marked as reserved (the van gets special privileges there, even though it doesn't actually have a permit).

[Andara Bledin]

There are times I wish the cops patrolled the lots in our shopping center for parking violations and hand out tickets.

Because it's private property, cops can only come in when expressly invited. At least that's how it works in Cali. And the property owner/manager has to make the call, from what I understand.

^-.-^

[Polenicus]

Parking is always a great source of awesome stories. There are always too few parking spaces, and too much entitlement.

Here's one for example.

At the college where I used to work security, there was never enough parking. Parking was GONE by 7:30, and people would start parking wherever they could... taking reserved staff spots, handicapped stalls, and even parking right under the signs that said 'Fire Lane - No Parking'. And anytime we ticketed, there was alway huge drama... especially from the STAFF who were some of the worst offenders.

But this guy took the cake.

He was a student in one of the programs in a particular building next to the parkade. In front of the Parkade, right next to the building, was a small parking lot. By 6:30 am, it was full. By 7:30 am, people had proceeded to use up all the 'creative' options too, such as parking on the outside of the cement islands that divid parking spots and driving lanes, or parking along the outer edge of the lot.

This student rolled up each morning at 10 am for his class in a shiny black H2. Chrome rims, always washed and waxed and shining. So already we're into 'Danger, Will Robinson!' territory here.

The lot, of course, would be full beyond capacity. Even using your imagination, you couldn't create another parking space. So what does he do? He drives up over the edge onto the lawn between the parking lot and the road! He didn't even bother to park STRAIGHT, so as to make it look like anything but an H2 that had just been left where it happened to stop.

So, we ticketed him. Damn near every day. We'd call the tow truck, but the process we were yoked to was so onerous that by the time the truck arrived (about four hours later) he was finished his classes and gone. I'm not embarrassed to say we targeted this guy. He was making us look really bad, his vehicle was visible on one of the main roads past the college, and it was just a major thumbing of the nose at any semblance of parking control we had.

So then he got smart, or so he thought. He started taking the old tickets, and putting them BACK on his windshield, so we wouldn't give him another. Except... the tickets are dated, and we watched him do this from the parkade booth (Yes, every day he did this within plain view of a security guard, who would then call it in and get him ticketed).

We must have written nearly a thousand dollar's worth of tickets. I'm pretty sure he didn't realize that our ticketing was done via bylaw, and therefore enforced by the city. Meaning the next time his vehicle registration came up, those tickets HAD to be paid. (How much you willing to bet Mommy and Daddy were paying for that, and WEREN'T told about all of the tickets by precious?)

The real kicker? I found out where he lived when I switched to night shift. It wasn't hard, that kind of SUV is pretty distinctive. It was parked at a house FOUR BLOCKS AWAY, every night. Within sight of the college.