Police make late night sweep ticketing cars parked in driveways but protruding onto sidewalks.
By ANNE LINDBERG
Published January 11, 2004
PINELLAS PARK - About 45 city residents got a rude awakening Wednesday: Tickets on their cars.
While they slept, Pinellas Park police Officer Michael Nicholson was citing them for parking on the sidewalk, a violation of a city ordinance. Nicholson wrote 45 tickets in about five hours.
"Everybody received parking tickets for parking on their own driveways but blocking sidewalks," said Galina Beaudet, who received a ticket. "All Pinellas Park is upset. Nobody saw this coming....It was out of blue sky, all these tickets."
Beaudet said she was upset because her yard and driveway, like many in Pinellas Park, are too small to hold more than one car without protruding onto the sidewalk. And Beaudet lives on a corner, so it's impossible to park in the street.
Also irritating, Beaudet said, is the time of the ticketing. Normally, she said, her cars do not block the sidewalk. But they generally do between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. when all family members are home. But during those hours, few people are strolling around town.
Pinellas Park spokesman Tim Caddell said Beaudet's neighborhood was not targeted. Nicholson wrote tickets all across the city that night. He was responding to a complaint that had been called in.
Caddell didn't know who had complained or what time the complaint was received. But Nicholson began issuing tickets around midnight and finished about 5 a.m. Wednesday.
"They were spread out pretty much," Caddell said. "Some of these things they enforce when they have time to do it."
Caddell agreed that few people are using sidewalks in the wee hours of the morning, but the city rules do not have times making it okay to impede sidewalk traffic.
The issue of cars being parked on sidewalks has been a hot one in Pinellas Park for the past few years.
Disabled residents, primarily represented by local activist Marshall Cook, have complained to council members about cars blocking sidewalks and forcing wheelchair-bound folks, children, the elderly and others into the streets.
Cook, in particular, carries a camera with him most places and takes pictures of cars blocking sidewalks. He then e-mails the pictures to council members, the police chief, President Bush, Gov. Bush, the media and others. Over the years, he has e-mailed thousands of pictures.
Those complaints have made Pinellas Park police and other officials especially aware of the problem. They've included reminders in the city newsletter and on the city's television channel about the rule. Periodically, they've conducted sweeps to ticket repeat offenders.
But the efforts have been unsuccessful, Cook said. In some areas, he said, the city has erected signs telling of the rule only to have people park on the sidewalk next to the sign.
"How (else) do we get these 45 people's attention?" Cook asked. "The people have the right to use the sidewalks."
