Street parking is available pretty much everywhere in Toronto.
As a good citizen I usually pay for my parking, partly because I don’t mind paying for a service being delivered to me for my own convenience, and partly because I don’t want to get fined for not paying.
I’ve done the quick run into a store without buying a ticket and I’ve taken the calculated risk that I’ll be quick enough to beat the hornet before he stings my car.
I realize, of course, that if I do get tagged, that I deserve it, and I pay my fines like everyone else.
Where this rant comes into play is where I’ve caught the city of Toronto running a scam that will get pretty much everybody that lives in the city at some point or other if they aren’t made aware of it.
We have a pretty standard guideline across the city: you pay to park all day and into the evening, up until 9:00pm, then parking after 9:00pm is free.
And this isn’t about me thinking that I should be getting anything for free.
Where I have a problem is in the “entertainment district” where the hornets all know that the time for “free parking” has been pushed back to midnight, but the dolt city-dwellers have no idea that the rules have changed for that specific couple of blocks compared to the rest of the city.
I recently parked and paid my parking fee for up to 9:00pm and headed into my local pub to meet some friends and watch part of a hockey game, only to come out and find that I’d been tagged for $30 for “not displaying a valid ticket” at 9:10pm.
I actually caught the guy in the act and was sickened by the smug look on his face as he explained the later deadline for parking in that exact spot.
My point is: Be aware of the parking start and stop times in the city. The hornets know exactly when each spot expires and they fly in immediately in areas that they know people can be fooled.
Oh yeah, and also be very aware of the areas that say “1-hour free parking”. I see the hornets driving through my neighbourhood every day, parking illegally themselves, handing out tickets to cars that have just barely exceeded their hour of parking time.
How do they possibly know the amount of time a car has been parked? They chalk the tires. I saw a guy last week that was so lazy he didn’t even get out of his hornet-mobile … He had taped caulk to the end of a stick and was just leaning out the window to mark tires.
Whenever I see one of these guys I fondly remember my favourite scene from Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels when our pseudo heroes realize that they have a knocked out parking attendant in the back of their van when they’re getting away from robbing a grow house and they all just beat the crap out of the guy … because he is a parking attendant.
Who hasn’t dreamed about punching one of these guys in the face? I can’t imagine doing that job … The self-loathing would be unbearable.
