No Parking Means No Parking
Ninth Street in front of Culinaria has many free short-term angled parking spaces, but the area in front of the door is a no parking zone. A driver of a Cadillac found this out recently…
I wonder what the owner of the car thought as s/he tried to remove the sticker? My guess is the city is no good, downtown sucks, etc. Some feel entitled to break rules then blame others when caught.
What’s the big deal about parking here?
Well, my guess is to make sure drivers leaving a space don’t back into the crosswalk or cause congestion problems in the 9th & Olive intersection. Enforcement only goes so far, design also plays a role.
A curb bulb could eliminate this problem, it wouldn’t have cost much when the 9th Street Garage was being built. Now it would be very costly to modify the area. A bulb out would be nice because it would give Culinaria more sidewalk space when they sell food & drink on the sidewalk during games, plus it would provided room near the entrance for bike parking. When the current bike parking is used the sidewalk becomes too narrow.
Don’t expect to see any change though, drivers will see an opportunity and then bad talk the city when called out.
— Steve Patterson
It looks like the sticker is the kind a car gets when it has been booted for non-payment of previous parking tickets. If so, as a repeat offender, this driver may or may not be “bad talking” the city, but life is full of choices. Call it education or call it persecution, we need to do more of this IF we want our parking regulations to be respected.
These type of stickers are available online: http://www.myparkingpermit.com/Parking-Stickers/Parking-Violation-Stickers.aspx
I don’t quite understand your response to JZ71. Are you suggesting the sticker was placed on the Cadillac by a private citizen, that the sticker was possibly purchased online?
Did you or anyone read the sticker? Parking enforcement officers in the city typically do not apply an orange sticker to the driver’s window as a WARNING. And I’ve never heard of a parking enforcement officer in the city ISSUING a WARNING. They write tickets! The Boot Crew applies orange stickers. The orange sticker TYPICALLY is placed just prior to towing. I think 5 unpaid tickets gets you a tow to the impound lot!!!!!
(Removal is a bit of a problem. It requires the use of a razor blade and water, and then the application of a de-gummer. My car was towed by mistake in Chicago, and not only did I not receive any semblance of an apology, but I HAD TO REMOVE THE STICKER MYSELF!)
Our condo association has similar orange stickers that we use occasionally, I think this sticker came from either the city parking enforcement crew or from Culinaria. I didn’t get close enough to find out.
The stickers in your link are half the size of the one on the Cadillac and are oriented horizontally, not vertically, like the one in the photo. I agree, in private lots, they provide one level of enforcement. And, as you noted, this is a city street, so I seriously doubt that any of the employees of Culinaria are doing any “enforcing” – no jurisdiction and too much liability.
I also agree with Steve B. – parking enforcement rarely (never?) issues warnings. If you’re parked illegally, you get a citation. If you want to fight it, there’s a process for doing so. There’s also one or more processes for impounding private property (vehicles) for failing to respond to legal citations, aka paying your fines. This looks very much like a vehicle that has either been immobilized (booted) or will be towed shortly: http://stlouis-mo.gov/government/departments/treasurer/parking-violations/booting-and-towing.cfm
If you used a sticker like this on a car in a public street (as in the photo above), I think you could be cited for vandalism or destruction of property. It is not a citizen’s right to damage someone else’s property even if they have done something illegal.
In a private lot or garage, it is probably a different matter.
I find myself in agreement Steve. People are so fracking self-centered. I’ve noticed this problem in the CWE and the Hill, where assholes park in handicap zones (no tag), in front of sidewalk ramps, in front of mailboxes, and hydrants. Why just the other day I was having lunch at Adriana’s on the hill and within the hour, 2…..2 (wish I could make that bolder) pulled up, and parked right out side their front door blocking the fire hydrant. One ordered their food and sat for 20 min or so, the other ordered their food and left.
I don’t care if it’s 30 seconds….a NO parking zone is exactly that…..NO parking.
And don’t even get me started on those taking up more than one space!
Useful information, even for non-teens – probably should be mandatory every time you renew your license plates: http://stlouis-mo.gov/government/departments/treasurer/documents/upload//ipi_How-to-Park.pdf
Steve, I wonder if Culinaria would run with your idea of street bulb or if they have given any thought or consideration. While it might cost money to modify. Having Culinaria provide the funding might be mutual beneficial and certainly not out of the norm. A big chunk of CORTEX streetscape and Boyle interchange funding coming from multiple sources, private and public
When the automatic door openers don’t work they remind me Missouri owns the garage, they’re a tenant. I then remind them DESCO, their development company conceived, designed, and built it.
Regardless of who may have “conceived, designed and built” the garage, automatic door openers are among the more problematic devices that any building owner/operator has to live with. Frankly, they’re a pain in the ass! And often they break without giving any “notice”. On-staff maintenance personnel are rarely capable of repairing them, so a contractor has to be called to service the operator. Those contractors aren’t sitting around in trucks, just down the street, waiting for a call….so it takes time. And there are no CHEAP automatic door openers available, so the problem isn’t that the “conceiver, developer, contractor” cheaped-out on the original purchase.
Here is an idea, get people to walk and bike to the store instead of driving. This is why I was against the angled parking instead of the regular parallel street parking.
What does the direction of parking have to do with biking vs driving to the store?