- SF residents claim they are ticketed for parking in their own driveways.
- Violations appear very minor; residents say they don’t block access.
- Lawyer Steve Lehto cites due process and Sixth Amendment concerns.
Parking tickets are a familiar annoyance in any city, but for some San Francisco residents, the frustration isn’t coming from parking in the wrong place; it’s from parking in exactly the right one. These aren’t folks upset with a new daylighting system or street parking system that changed their routine. Instead, they claim they’re legally parking in their own driveways and still getting tickets.
What’s adding to the confusion is that these tickets aren’t the result of a new parking policy or increased enforcement. Instead, they’re triggered by neighborhood reports. The city isn’t actively patrolling for this type of violation; it’s simply responding to complaints submitted by locals.
The system in place in San Francisco is called 311, and it provides citizens with a non-emergency system to report illegal activity. In this case, the city says it’s not targeting folks but rather responding to these 311 calls…