Updated Dec. 1: This story has been updated to note that a sign we featured earlier (see below) with this story was found to be incorrect and will be replaced. It should have said “No parking between the hours of midnight and 6 a.m.” and not 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.
FARMINGTON – The owners of 17 vehicles each received a $20 parking ticket over the weekend.
With the town’s winter parking ordinance in effect vehicles are banned from parking overnight from midnight to 6 a.m. on streets or in town lots until April 15, 2016.
The town’s winter parking ordinance prohibits parking from midnight to 6 a.m. on any street, public way or town-owned or leased parking lot or “during that part of the day which would block the removal of snow,” according to the ordinance. The parking ban kicked in on Nov. 15.
Vehicles receiving tickets from Friday to early Monday morning were parked in spaces on streets along High, Exchange, Pleasant, Front, Perham, Broadway, Church, Quebec, in the municipal lot off Main Street and in the lot at the Community Center on Middle Street. The most numerous of the parking violations occurred on High Street.
The parking ban is all about snow removal. A vehicle parked in a public way when the Highway Department’s plows are working to clear the streets and lots it maintains is a hazard and a hindrance.
While a $20 ticket may be an unpleasant surprise, it could be worse. A vehicle considered in the way of a plow’s operation may be towed at the owner’s expense which can total $100 or more to retrieve it.
Is the parking ban from midnight until 6am (as reported in the article) or from 10pm until 6am like the sign says?
I don’t know who commissioned or made the sign, but it’s nice to see such an attractive one when we could have had one more purely utilitarian.
Does the sign indicate that the parking ban started on 11/15-4/15? Not being someone local but takes elders shopping and out to eat in town – I wouldn’t have known this was effective. Can anyone answer? Thank you
We’ve found the sign to be incorrect. Please see the updated version of the story.
once again the the government makes a buck out of a non problem if it snows and the car is there then it gets towed. but to lock down the limited parking in town just by a date is simply dumb!
Farmington is a much safer place since these tickets were issued .. Since the signs are different, do you suppose that the Cheif might want to tear up the tickets????
The signs do not say explicitly the months and dates, just “Winter Parking”. Winter officially starts some time in middle of December. I would not have noticed it either if it had been me.
To “Out of towner”
Where do you take ‘elders’ shopping and dining after midnight, or even 10:00 pm?
If the tickets aren’t voided then I hope at least one victim will have an attorney call the overzealous FPD to explain when winter starts. I bet there will be a new sign (at taxpayer expense once again) done right this time.
*starts playing tiny violin*
No need for a new sign, just have Sign Works fix the sign. They are great at what they do.