Couple Get Parking Ticket After Curb Repainted Around Parked Car
A US couple were slapped with a parking ticket after a red zone stripe was repainted around their parked car.
Desiree and Jeff Jolly live in San Francisco, and like many city residents they know all too well the struggle of finding a good parking spot.
However, they struck gold when they found a regular space in their Russian Hill neighbourhood – at least, they thought they had.
But this all changed in recent days when they were given a $180 (£148) ticket for parking in the same area they had been for the past 25 years.
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Speaking to ABC7 News, Desiree said: "We came out and we were walking up from the store, and I noticed the ticket on my car."
The reason stated on the ticket was that they had parked in a red zone, which was repainted on the curb while their vehicle was still there.
Footage from the news station shows that there appears to even be a gap where the painters had gone around the Honda's tire.
"If it was warranted I don't have a problem with it, but this seems unfair to me," she added. "The red stripe is there, where it wasn't before, and they had the nerve to just to go around my tire."
Jeff, who is a painter himself, joked: "I saw that and I even have painter friends who say what a bad job that was. They missed a spot."
Although the couple are fighting the fine, a spokesperson for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) explained that the violation is still valid, claiming that the red zone had always been there - only the paint had faded.
The agency even gave ABC7 News an image of the old faded stripe to accompany their statement, but Desiree and Jeff argue that it is barely visible.
After inspecting the same spot on Google Maps' street view, most would agree that the curb appears to be grey.
In addition, it doesn't explain why they hadn't been fined for all of those years they had been parking in the spot.
Whether or not the couple will have the fine cancelled is down to the citations clerk, but for now it's left the pair frustrated.
Desiree explained: "I'm going through chemotherapy right now, so it's like I'm worried about other things and now I have to worry about this."
They were planning to move to France at some point in the future, and the incident has only fuelled their desire, with Desiree concluding: "We do want to leave because of all of this stuff that goes on in the city."
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Daisy Phillipson