I just received a parking ticket for parking outside of the space, to me that is crazy because I was parked in the corner of the lot, was not blocking anyone or a through way, so I thought there is no harm. I've seen people park there all day and not get a ticket.

I can hardly read the ticket, can anyone tell me what the hack is this about? I tried google search but could not find anything.

I would plead Not Guilty and request a Trial with the officer present, and then once you get the notice of trial, you can request disclosure (officers notes).

Note that the Toronto court system is pretty backed up so there is a good chance that the court date will be more than a year away and therefore you can get it stayed/dropped under a Section 11b request due to lack of speedy trial.

nice, good call

jsherk wrote:

I would plead Not Guilty and request a Trial with the officer present, and then once you get the notice of trial, you can request disclosure (officers notes).

Note that the Toronto court system is pretty backed up so there is a good chance that the court date will be more than a year away and therefore you can get it stayed/dropped under a Section 11b request due to lack of speedy trial.

There is a by-law against parking outside the marked spaces in Green P lots, although I can't find the exact number for it at the moment. From what I've seen I think that rule is usually enforced on a complaint basis, which is why you have seen other people get away with parking there before. Unfortunately, in your case you either got caught by a rare random check or some busy body reported you. Either way, if you want to fight it I would follow Jsherk's advice, what he wrote is probably the best way to handle it if you want to take the matter to court. However also keep in mind that the ticket is only $30 and will not affect you insurance, so you should do your own cost benefit analysis to see if fighting it is worth it in terms of time away form work etc.

Well, I see everyone's point and here is mine...

Going to court and wasting court's time and resources as well as my time for a parking ticket is not very wise. It is an absolute waste of resoyrces.

Having said that, the ticket should be just and have some merit to it. This is a total money grab and ridiculous ticket...

So I'm torn, should I or should I not take it court.

No fire access blocked, no through way, not blocking anyone backing out of their space, absolutely no reason to give one a ticket, it makes me think, if you want my $30, I should make you spend more than that to get it from me. I work hard to make a living and don't have extra $30 kicking around to just hand over to the city. There was no other space to park, otherwise I would have not parked there. You think Green P would be happy some one is trying to maximize their parking lot and pays for parking, but I guess that is not enough.

Sorry for the rant, got carried away.

CNBEY wrote:

No fire access blocked, no through way, not blocking anyone backing out of their space, absolutely no reason to give one a ticket

They don't want you parking there or they would have made it a spot. That's the only reason they need. Why you think it would make for a good spot is, at the end of the day, irrelevant.

CNBEY wrote:

it makes me think, if you want my $30, I should make you spend more than that to get it from me. I work hard to make a living and don't have extra $30 kicking around to just hand over to the city. There was no other space to park, otherwise I would have not parked there.

They're getting paid to be there (ironically, by you). You on the other hand are showing up on your own dime. If you work hard for that $30, then put your own costs first.

If there's no available spaces, it's not their problem. Again, it's irrelevant.

At some point you have to consider the cost/reward. I wouldn't waste a day to go to the courthouse over a $30 parking ticket, but that's just me. That's not even including transportation costs and the potential cost of parking. At what point do you say i'm not wasting $30 to potentially save $30. That's something you'll have to ask yourself.

And there is no real possibility of saving £30 !

Not to beat a dead horse, I'm just going to update this thread for anyone who may read it, perhaps it will help them out.

There is a form to dispute parking tickets on City of Toronto website, you can fill out and email it to them and they get back to you letting you if the ticket can be cancelled or not. They also list a number criteria that may be grounds to be cancel a ticket, one of which is incorrect location/address of the offence.

It turns out although the address on my ticket is wrong, they would not cancel it, oh well...

I asked them about the code and it is 307, they also pointed me to the document and section that this code refers to.

It turns out the bylaw is written to stop people from taking two parking spaces, and if the vehicle is too large/long and it won't fit in one space the driver needs to take up two spaces and pay for both. But this officer took the wording of the bylaw out of context and decided to ticket me, which explains why other people park there and don't get ticketed and this time I did, most likely this was not the usual officer that monitors the area and some one was filling in.