Hi CD Members,

Read out the article published in today's Toronto Star. Now we need to pay parking ticket issued by City of Toronto officials. None of other is valid. Read the whole story.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1090620613100&call_pageid=968350130169&col=969483202845

Jul. 24, 2004. 01:00 AM

SPOT THE REAL ONE: Only ticket on far left is city-issued. The others, privately issued, are now illegal, the city says. From second left, tickets by Municipal Parking, Universal, Imperial and Sunnybrook.

4 tickets you shouldn't pay, New bylaw rules that only city-issued tickets are legal
Private ticketers could lose millions; 1 firm vows to fight. If you get a parking ticket that doesn't have a City of Toronto logo on it, throw it away.

That's the advice of John Weingust, a Toronto lawyer and activist for motorists.
"Completely ignore the tickets," said Weingust, who specializes in vehicle-related law. "They're not legal."

While he says private parking tickets were always legally questionable, city council passed a bylaw this week making it official.

"You can get away with something for a long period of time until someone ultimately says we're going to stop it with legislation," Weingust said.

For parking lot operators and private institutions, like hospitals, the new bylaw means they can no longer make millions issuing their own parking fines to people who stay in a lot past the time they pay for or decide to risk a fine by not paying at all.

Now, if they want to punish a parking violator they'll have to issue a City of Toronto ticket. That means the city and not the private company gets the fine money.

But Impark, the city's largest private parking lot company, says it doesn't believe the bylaw is valid and will continue to issue its own parking tickets. If people don't pay, the bill will go to a collection agency.

"It's highly illegal what they're doing," Tom Iannacchino, general manager of Impark, said about the city's new bylaw.

"We're enforcing the law of contract, which has nothing to do with the municipality," he said.

If you get a city ticket, you have to eventually pay it or you can't get your driver's licence renewed. But with private tickets that doesn't happen. The only way they can force you to pay is to send the bill to a collection agency. And that's a big part of why city council got involved in the first place.

Police get 500 complaints each month from people who have received private parking tickets, said Gary Ellis, superintendent of the Toronto police parking enforcement unit.

Strong-arm collection tactics, including phone calls in the middle of the night and threats of notifying credit rating companies if the bill isn't paid, are routine complaints, Ellis said.


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`It took me, a police officer, some time to actually figure out this was not an official ticket'

Gary Ellis, superintendent of the Toronto police parking enforcement unit

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Others include outright fraud, being ticketed on public property or when parked with a valid ticket, or the lack of an appeal process and excessive fines.

And because many people don't know there is a difference between a city ticket and a private ticket, this makes the city look bad, he said.

Recently Ellis nearly made his 17-year-old son use his allowance to pay a parking ticket.

Luckily, just before four weeks of allowance was forked over, Ellis figured out it wasn't a real ticket.

"It took me, a police officer, some time to actually figure out this was not an official ticket," Ellis said. Police have investigated problematic ticketing companies, but Ellis says they haven't been able to do much.

"Some we go after and they pop up under different names," Ellis said.

Though councillors approved the new bylaw 24 to 14 on Thursday, one group of councillors felt the city was going too far.

"I think what Councillor Howard Moscoe is trying to do — with respect and I appreciate his passion — is attempting to swat the fly with a sledge hammer," said Deputy Mayor Michael Feldman (Ward 10, York Centre.)

Moscoe, who led and won a similar charge against tow truck companies a few years ago, thinks he's on the right track.

And if Impark, which says it issued 50,000 tickets last year, continues ticketing, Moscoe vows to get the police to charge them for breaking the bylaw.

"Those who are illegally ticketing will be issued with real tickets and we'll see them in court," said Moscoe (Ward 15, Eglinton-Lawrence).

Until now, parking enforcement companies and private institutions have had a choice.

They could issue their own tickets, which often look very similar to official city ones. Or they could participate in the city's official ticketing program.

That involves having their staff trained as municipal licensing officers who then can issue city parking tickets. Last year the city made $4.7 million on this program, Ellis said. In total, the city made about $32.5 million in parking fines. That money pays for courts.

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Live and Let Live. Together we can make a difference.

DP JAIN, CPA, CGA, CPA (US), CA(I), LL.B.(I)
416-305-0080
(Loans, Mortgage, Tax, Accounting, Investments)

thanks Dp Jain. That is useful info and addition to my knowledge.
This type of participation keeps life in our forum.
Thanks again for sharing it with us.

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