Interestingly, this past weekend in addition to learning how naive I am, I also learned that free parking doesn’t always mean, well, free. I have a $60 (yes, sixty) ticket to prove it.
Here is what happened. I was visiting my family in Montauk, Long Island, New York for the Easter/holiday weekend. On Friday morning I did the grocery shopping (3 different stores to get everything) and a little gift shopping for Easter. I shopped in the town of East Hampton. I went to the municpal lot to park, it said free parking (which I thought meant, free, come park anywhere – little did I know), I followed someone in, parked, all seemed to go well (little did I know what was to come). We went shopping, bought quite a bit as we were feeding 12 people for the weekend. One woman even commented on my very full cart.
Anyway I digress, when I returned to my car, I found a $60 ticket. When I asked the policewoman, she said, “oh, yes, this is free parking, but you need to get a ticket when you come into the lot. And you have to display your ticket the right way.” She then went on to say, “we just started this on April 1 (note: an unlikely April Fool’s joke given the ticket and her posture. By the way, the ticket machine was tiny and very low – easily missed.) The ticket has to be on the front dash, right here, face up, with this orientation, any thing else, and you get a ticket. You can go to court and fight it, but it will stick.” When I said $60 seems steep for free parking she shrugged her shoulders. It is East Hampton afterall.
Since I was not going to get anywhere with this officer, I loaded up my groceries and went to Town Hall/Court. The Court building was locked, but Town Hall was open, lights on, evidence of people around (beverages, work out, etc), but we couldn’t find anyone. A few other people were walking around looking for help as well. When we walked out side, I saw a woman from inside the building come to the door and lock it up and turn quickly to walk away. She didn’t/wouldn’t return to the door. When I called Town Hall a voice recording said they were open, just come on by.
So now I have a $60 for free parking, no one to talk to, and the realization that it will cost me $60 (round trip including tolls) to come back and fight this ticket… which according to one local, the best I can hope for is to get it reduced in half. Well, lessoned learned. I won’t do that again!
And now I am reminded that there is no such thing as free parking… well, it can be free if you know and follow ALL the rules… Otherwise fork over the $60.
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