Towed
This past Thursday morning (November 10) B and I started to leave for work. But on stepping out our front door, we realized that our car was missing. I briefly worried that it had been stolen until we noticed that there were no cars on the street. Then we noticed these small signs at either end of our block:
We missed these small warnings. It was leaf-sweeping day for our street. When we moved into out apartment we received in the mail a very detailed brochure on what the snow plowing and snow emergency procedures are, what side of the street you are allowed to park and when, etc. But there was no mention of leaf-cleaning day.
We came inside and B made some calls. Yup, our car had been towed. It would be $133 to get it out of the impound lot, plus a $34 ticket for not moving our car on leaf-sweeping day. (And we had to take a $15 cab to the impound lot, which is not near public transportation.) B expressed some outrage at this, and asked how in the hell we were supposed to know about leaf-sweeping day. The guy at the impound explained that those small signs are indeed the only warning; they are supposed to be put out on streets 48 hours before sweeping, but sometimes they are put out the day before. Which sucks if you work normal hours, since it's dark by the time you get home. The guy on the phone agreed that it was indeed easy to miss those signs, and noted that the impound lot was *full* because of it.
Obviously we were upset at this. Minneapolis is such a nice city. There are tons of parks. There public meetings about everything; government seems more transparent than a city like, say, Providence (where our mayor was sent to prison), and citizens seem so involved. Yet here is a total revenue-generating scam by the city, basically a tax on people without driveways. Leaf-sweeping day, fine. But how hard would it be to send out a flyer letting people know about it? Plus, even in Providence, if the city wanted to penalize some mis-parked cars they would just slap a hefty ticket on you. But towing? For leaves? B and I each missed an hour of work. The only thing I can think is that on paper, towing cars that have ignored publicly posted signs and are obstructing efforts to "keep Minneapolis beautiful" sounds good. But in practice it is implemented so poorly that it seems like a dirty trick played by the city.
So we went down to the impound lot and paid the fine. The cabbie who drive us made it clear that he spends most mornings driving people to the impound lot. Later at work, I discovered that a coworker had been hit with the same fine on Monday. One of B's coworkers knows a girl who's been hit with this tax 3 years in a row. Finally, leaf-sweeping day happens *twice* a year, so we have to be on the lookout for the signs for the next couple of months.
Fortunately we do have off-street parking. We just haven't used the garage in the back of our place because on-street parking has been plentiful. But it supposed to snow Tuesday through Thursday, so I might as well get used to using the garage.
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The rest of our weekend was pleasant but uneventful. We watched movies Friday night, and Saturday we got down to the Mall of America and I bought a winter coat.
Last weekend (Nov. 5th and 6th) B and I played a good amount of poker, both of us at the Canterbury on Saturday night and then me and a couple guys from work played at Treasure Island (outside Red Wing, MN) on Sunday afternoon. I posted the details of those trips in my poker blog, Cheap Thrills.
We missed these small warnings. It was leaf-sweeping day for our street. When we moved into out apartment we received in the mail a very detailed brochure on what the snow plowing and snow emergency procedures are, what side of the street you are allowed to park and when, etc. But there was no mention of leaf-cleaning day.
We came inside and B made some calls. Yup, our car had been towed. It would be $133 to get it out of the impound lot, plus a $34 ticket for not moving our car on leaf-sweeping day. (And we had to take a $15 cab to the impound lot, which is not near public transportation.) B expressed some outrage at this, and asked how in the hell we were supposed to know about leaf-sweeping day. The guy at the impound explained that those small signs are indeed the only warning; they are supposed to be put out on streets 48 hours before sweeping, but sometimes they are put out the day before. Which sucks if you work normal hours, since it's dark by the time you get home. The guy on the phone agreed that it was indeed easy to miss those signs, and noted that the impound lot was *full* because of it.
Obviously we were upset at this. Minneapolis is such a nice city. There are tons of parks. There public meetings about everything; government seems more transparent than a city like, say, Providence (where our mayor was sent to prison), and citizens seem so involved. Yet here is a total revenue-generating scam by the city, basically a tax on people without driveways. Leaf-sweeping day, fine. But how hard would it be to send out a flyer letting people know about it? Plus, even in Providence, if the city wanted to penalize some mis-parked cars they would just slap a hefty ticket on you. But towing? For leaves? B and I each missed an hour of work. The only thing I can think is that on paper, towing cars that have ignored publicly posted signs and are obstructing efforts to "keep Minneapolis beautiful" sounds good. But in practice it is implemented so poorly that it seems like a dirty trick played by the city.
So we went down to the impound lot and paid the fine. The cabbie who drive us made it clear that he spends most mornings driving people to the impound lot. Later at work, I discovered that a coworker had been hit with the same fine on Monday. One of B's coworkers knows a girl who's been hit with this tax 3 years in a row. Finally, leaf-sweeping day happens *twice* a year, so we have to be on the lookout for the signs for the next couple of months.
Fortunately we do have off-street parking. We just haven't used the garage in the back of our place because on-street parking has been plentiful. But it supposed to snow Tuesday through Thursday, so I might as well get used to using the garage.
------------------------------
The rest of our weekend was pleasant but uneventful. We watched movies Friday night, and Saturday we got down to the Mall of America and I bought a winter coat.
Last weekend (Nov. 5th and 6th) B and I played a good amount of poker, both of us at the Canterbury on Saturday night and then me and a couple guys from work played at Treasure Island (outside Red Wing, MN) on Sunday afternoon. I posted the details of those trips in my poker blog, Cheap Thrills.
posted by James at 9:29 AM
1 Comments:
Wow! Sorry to hear about the towing. That's a nasty trick. And costly, too!
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