Interesting Parking Scenario With Sign Covered

Got an interesting scenario here. North York, quiet residential dead empty street, Park where you want for up to 3 hours. On the entire street there is one tiny parkette, you can't park in front of the parkette.

In front of the parkette is a tree, the type with the whips hanging down and completely covering the sign. Even though I had 1km of free space to park, I park by the parkette and get a ticket.

The things that bother me about this, it was 22 minutes after parking and since when does OPP troll down a quiet north york street where parking is already free and over abundant. Its very clear to me he is exploiting this scenario.

As for fighting it. Its a slam dunk, the tree fully covers the sign. I would have no reason to park exactly by the sign when there are hundreds of others spots.

I guess the reason for my post is to see what others think about this. Is it really a mistake when a cop shows up under a willow tree 22 minutes later. You can't get one to come out for hours yet this one knows exactly where a hidden parking sign is on a street where normally he has no business.