Parking enforcement an industry
If you were nailed by a parking assassin on Victoria Day (they love to get people around the fireworks celebrations), you are contributing to the $80-million the city of Toronto raises each year in parking fines.
To get that $80-million, in 2009, 2,794,460 parking tickets were handed out.
All it really is, is a sneaky tax on people with cars who already pay and pay and pay. In fact Torontonians pay two registration fees.
Meanwhile, the city has about 2,500 Municipal Law Enforcement Officers set out to feed the tyrannical money monster. The only prompt city service you will ever receive for all the tax you pay is from these people.
It’s no longer parking enforcement. It’s a parking industry. Drop down to the collection office at 55 John St. and you’ll find this parking office looks like a bank, which is fitting. There are so many parking grievances, you have to take a number in the hospital-style waiting room. Also fitting.
The only good news for me the other day was sitting beside me was TSN’s Jennifer Hedger, who was dinged after her condo building forced all of the cars from the underground to the street for spring power washing.
“My building was granted exemptions from areas such as 3 hour un-posted, one-hour limit parking, expired meters, pay-and-display areas, and ‘No Parking Anytime areas’,” during the time of this washing.
But there was a catch.
“The street I parked on has a one-hour limit parking, but it doesn’t become that until 10 a.m each morning. From 12:01 a.m until 10a.m, it is permit parking, and our condo building did not receive an exemption. If I had of pulled up at 10 a.m, I would have been fine. I pulled up at 9:40am, and it cost me $30.”
Gotchya. Zero tolerance.
“I understand the rule, but I still feel as though I’ve been ‘tricked.’”
You were tricked. There are traps like that all over the city.
Turns out she lined up for an hour to find out that nobody cared. But it might be good because Jennifer’s husband, Sean McCormick, of Sportsnet fame can help change this. He is running for councillor in Ward 19 and is one of a bright, young, fresh crop of commonsensers who are prepared to put their high profile career’s on hold to attempt to bring City Hall back to serve and not to be served.
“Parking enforcement has simply become another unpalatable form of tax collection,” says Sean. “The problem is taxpayers in Toronto have been the victims of so many new taxes and surcharges over the last eight years that receiving a parking ticket has become even more infuriating because it is the symptom of a bigger problem — taxpayer fatigue. Taxpayers should be the last option, not the first, when City Hall attempts to solve budgetary problems.”
He’s got my vote.
*****
East York does not need a parkette named after the great John Candy to show their collective love for him. But, still, it would have been nice. And maybe one day it could still happen.
Just not right now.
The comic legend’s widow has respectfully declined the offer by the City of Toronto, spearheaded by Councillor Case Ootes, to rename a small park, a little north up Broadview and Danforth, after the former Second City funnyman. “If John were here at this time he would say, ‘Trust me, this is definitely not the right time,’” Rose Candy told me in a recent e-mail. “I hope everyone will not be upset and have patience.”
So the project has been shelved out of respect for the Candys who lost John all too early in 1994.
“My answer is personal,” said Rose. “This answer comes from myself and my children, Jennifer and Christopher. We love Toronto. John’s uncle and cousins are there along with my brother and sisters.”
Maybe this is an idea that will come down the road — or perhaps the other idea of re-naming Hwy. 404 “The John Candy Parkway” will be adopted.
But we have to go easy on these things until his family is more comfortable with them.
“I want to say I have strong feelings on how John’s name is used,” she said. “I am very protective.”
Ootes said he understands her concerns — saying the idea came about with the best of intentions.
******
What a great Victoria Day weekend. Hopefully you got to do something special — whether it was to go somewhere out of town like Algonquin Park where my pal, Pete Fisher, and his son, Corby, got some great close-up pictures of moose or to just hang around in the city at Harbourfront or on Toronto Island. Either way works.
You definitely don’t need to go out of town to be a tourist. There is plenty to do in the city.
As for the waterfront, despite the criticism, if the weather is on that place is on. I love sitting on the patio at the Pier 4 Storehouse right across the Billy Bishop airport, and adjacent to the Toronto Police’s fascinating Marine Unit, for fish and chips, clam chowder and to watch the planes land and ferries bring people back and forth.
It’s a neat place to hang and Pier 4 staffers Antoinette Headley, Radha Pithodia and Kyla Medeiros tell me there is no better summer job.
The bad news is it’s Tuesday after a long weekend. The good news is it’s only three days to Friday.
joe.warmington@sunmedia.ca
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