Parking Permit Grace Periods

Hello All,

Someone I know was staying at a family member's home for the evening and received a "parking without a permit" ticket for parking after midnight on a Toronto street. She arrived around midnight and parked her car to go inside and look online to purchase a permit for the evening. She went back to her car to get some information and found a ticket already on her window. Is there a generally accepted "grace period" for someone to have the time to purchase the required permit?

I understand the parking enforcement officer would not know if she arrived 3 minutes or 3 hours before their arrival, but would a sworn affidavit by the home owner attesting to the time of arrival help with having the ticket withdrawn?

Thanks!

That would be entirely up to the discretion of the officer or prosecutor. Unfortunately, the parking enforcement officers in Toronto are notorious for appearing out of nowhere to write tickets. I've received two tickets while standing at the machine paying for my parking! There's no obligation to give you a grace period. As you correctly pointed out, the officer has no way of knowing when your friend arrived nor when she was planning to leave. Midnight is midnight.

Tickets while you were waiting to pay? That's crazy

No grace periods. Sworn affidavit will not be helpful at all.

They should plead Not Guilty and request a trial with the officer present. Once they get their Notice of Trial, then they can request disclosure (copy of officers notes). Once they get the notes, post the here so we can review.

Toronto courts are backed up so if the trial date is a long way off they may be able to get it dropped because they did not get speedy trial.

Thank you all for your help. More info to come, if/when disclosure shows up

Thanks again!

argyll wrote:

Tickets while you were waiting to pay? That's crazy

Toronto parking enforcement officers are like vultures. All those two guys had to do was look to the nearest machines (one in each direction) to see if there was anyone there. They don't care. They just punch a few buttons and the machine spits out a ticket. They're notorious for ticketing every vehicle they possibly can, knowing it's cheaper in terms of cost of time, effort and, often, additional parking fees, for a driver just to pay the ticket than to fight it.

Does your friend's phone track their whereabouts ? The iPhone has that feature (which has caught out a few cheating spouses I'm sure!)

If they were able to show that they had just arrived and testified they were in the process of paying for a permit then they might get lucky.

Presumably by the time she found the ticket she already had a valid parking permit.

Hello Everybody,

My friend received the notice of impending conviction today and she noticed on the form it says "Warning: on conviction you will be required to pay the set fine plus the court costs of 16.00 dollars".

Is this only if she does not respond as a penalty? Or is this if she fights the ticket in any fashion? Meaning, if she requests a trial date and loses, she will be penalized for it? Is this new?

Thanks!

That's only if she does nothing. If she requests a trial, there are no court costs unless she's ultimately convicted (including a guilty plea). My understanding is that Toronto now adds court costs to parking tickets; that never used to be the case.