Came downtown Denver for the First Friday artwalk.

Came downtown Denver for the First Friday artwalk. When leaving I come back to my truck to find a boot on the tire and a sticker on the window saying I have unpaid parking fees.

I don't have unpaid parking fees. I almost never drive into Denver, but rather take the light rail into the city. This makes absolutely no sense. And, what's worse, my phone's nearly dead, my roommate is asleep because she has to work tomorrow and I live an hour away.

I really have no idea about this parking thing. I have no known tickets and while I don't drive downtown that often I do occasionally drive downtown. More importantly, I drive through downtown. Hell, I parked on the street in Denver for 6 hours last Sunday with no problems.

It makes absolutely no sense.

Plus, because the office isn't open on the weekends, I can't even fight it until Monday so my truck will have to sit here until then which means it's a prime target for vandalism or thievery.

Comments

Bill Brayman said…
guess i'll mark denver off any future itineraries. Never could fathom that hard-ass approach, unless maybe they got an unruly bunch there with no civility.
John Bump said…
That sucks! I'm sorry. Times you wish you had an abrasive cutoff saw that could run off a car battery...
Jason ON said…
I'm home. Some friends from Parker came and picked me up at the southern most light rail station.
Bodhipaksa said…
How interesting, Christopher Gaul!
Jason ON said…
Is there any way to see the details on a post, such as posting time/location? According to Denver' Parking website, I have an unpaid ticket from September 2011. I went back and checked G+ posts from then and I posted all day long, but nothing about going downtown and nothing on the 18th about what I may have done downtown. In fact, according to my photos on the 18th, I was at a party at a friend's house in Littleton. I remember it very clearly because it was a pirate-themed party.

Not to mention, they have me parked up near the Federal Courthouse and I can't image for the life of me what I would have been doing up there on a Saturday at 10PM.
https://plus.google.com/photos/...
Bodhipaksa said…
I assume you removed the plate number before sharing the screenshot, Jason ON?
Jason ON said…
So, I checked, not only photo EXIF data, but my social media posts from that day and there is nothing to indicate I was downtown at 10PM that evening. I also checked my GMaps location data and while it has me "downtown" from 9:07 - 9:18, it also shows me as "moving", so I'm assuming I was driving through for 11 minutes, not actually stopped at 10PM.

Hopefully that's enough for reasonable doubt.

Of course, the dispute form I submitted said they'd get back to me within 30 days - by writing. Uh, I don't think my truck has that long before it's impounded. So, I still have to go down there on Monday to try and clear this up.
https://plus.google.com/photos/...
Nick McIntosh said…
They may have misread/wrote the license plate number for somebody else. I've been on the other end of that situation. I came back to my truck (10 minutes past the meter expiration) to find ticket on it with an incorrect license # on the ticket. At that point, I'm under no legal obligation to pay it, so it got crumpled up and thrown away.
Lily Alice said…
Did you talk to someone today?
Jason ON said…
Lily Alice I did, indeed. Denver has a full-time "Parking Magistrate" who sees all disputes. I walked in, all my evidence ready, to include their own website which states one must have at least three outstanding tickets before a boot or towing can occur.

He pulled up my license plate number in his system and said ... I had three outstanding tickets, from 2006, 2008 and 2011. He then went on and printed the invoices from the multiple times the City of Denver tried to reach out to me (at an old address).

At that point I really couldn't place blame on the city. They did their due diligence, just to the wrong address.

He took off about $70, but I still had to pay the "boot fee" of $100, plus the outstanding ticket costs.

Ugh.

They told me it would be about two hours before the boot would physically come off. Okay ... now I was downtown Denver, with one vehicle and needed to move another vehicle to a safer parking place so I didn't get immediately ticketed again.

I took my roommate's car down to a light rail (train) station, parked it, rode the train back, walked the 10 blocks or so (with a pretty/interesting girl, so it wasn't all that bad), drove my truck to the train station (Southmoor, for all you Denver folks), dropped it off and drove my roommate's car home. Later in the evening my roommate took me back to get my truck.
https://plus.google.com/photos/...
Lily Alice said…
Wow. I guess...the discount for the wrong address was good, but 12 years seems a long time to not get it right. It's creepy to think anyone could have tickets they don't even know about. And their system really needs work.

At least now you have a TV script idea you can shop.
Bodhipaksa said…
Wow! I'm glad you got it sorted out.
Jason ON said…
Lily Alice an excessively boring TV script.
Bodhipaksa said…
Jason ON It would be much more interesting if, à la Breaking Bad, you had 10 kilos of meth in the trunk and had to meet a homicidal drug lord in 30 minutes or have your entire family wiped out. I really do think there's potential here that you're not seeing!
Lily Alice said…
Or he has a Doppelgänger, or maybe he has to track down each person who assigned him a ticket and do a good deed for each one, or there is a club of parking offenders who get together to solve a series of crimes that were being covered up by the traffic warden.
Bodhipaksa said…
Lily Alice Apparently I’m more of a genre fiction writer rather than a literary one! I like your ideas!

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