Letter to Norwalk Parking Authority

30 March 2009

Norwalk Parking Authority
11 North Water Street
Norwalk, CT 06854

To Whom It May Concern;

I am writing to appeal a parking ticket I received on the evening of March 26th. I’ve enclosed a copy of the ticket.

I had parked on North Main Street in order to go to a movie, and when I came out of the theater I saw two conflicting things; on one hand, a ticket on my window, on the other, my meter with4 full minutes left. I know it is unlikely that a ticket’s given in error, but I think I know the source of the confusion – the slapdash parallel parking by the cars on either side of me. I didn’t have a camera so I couldn’t take a photo of the parking arrangement (or, for that matter, the time left on my meter), but I’ve tried to sketch the situation below:

[pencil sketch of three cars in overlapping arrangement]

As I hope this helps to make clear, there was some serious overlap between the cars and their respective parking spots. In the spot where I parked, there was a meter near the front of my car, but the arrow on it clearly indicated that it referred to the spot in front of me, not mine. The meter that went with my spot was to the rear of my car (even though that meter was actually next to the front hood of the car behind me). When I returned to my car, the meter near the front of my car was expired but mine had a few precious minutes on it. I could see how a hasty appraisal of the situation might look as though I were the culprit. But I think the combination of poor parking, perhaps overly generous parking spaces, and the odd locations of the meters (located, as they are, near the rear of the spots rather than smack dab in the middle) has led to what I suspect is just an oversight, one that we’ll all chuckle about in the years to come.

For your records, I arrived at 7:10 PM, and the ticket was given at 7:31. I returned to my car just before 9 after having seen I Love You, Man, a movie that is funny once, but considerably less so the second time around.

I hope that you will see that this ticket was the result of a mistake by a parking official, and throw out the fine of $25.

Sincerely,

Sheridan Dupre