Nothing like waking up Monday morning to a parking ticket but at least there was company in misery as at least 50 other people on my street received the same mean-spirited surprise this morning – a ticket for violating the winter parking ban. Great awareness campaign City of Halifax! When I phoned to complain I was told it was in the papers, on TV and on the radio. Well I guess me and at least 50 other of my ignorant neighbours choose to get our information from less outdated sources. Knowing the cost to book all these forms of media wouldn’t it be less expensive to send out a notice in the mail? Hey, but if you did that then I and most of my neighbours would have known not to park on the street last night and you wouldn’t have been able to rake in at least $2,500.00 in fines on my street alone. Come on Halifax, obviously you did a poor job of informing the public based on the number of people on my street who were as blissfully unaware as I. This first ticket should have been a warning as now I certainly want my date in court to blast your outdated modes of informing your citizens.
—Underinformed
This article appears in Dec 10-16, 2009.
Yeah HRM get your shit together and start a facebook page and send out some tweets!
Yes, It is expensive to book TV and radio ads. They pay for it with the revenue from the tickets of those who don’t read the papers or watch TV or listen to the radio.
I don’t even own a car and I knew when the ban was starting. There is a parking ban every year that usually starts at some point in December. A car owner who regularly parks on the street should probably take it upon themselves to find out when the ban begins and make arrangements accordingly. No sympathy.
I smell another Topic needed for the season….
winter = parking ban, same time every year…..get a fucking life douche bag! If it’s your first time owning a car in the winter, i guess this is a lesson learned.
Since you seem to read things posted here….
http://www.halifax.ca/mediaroom/pressrelea…
Look, you seriously can’t expect City Council to be that efficient, they’re far too busy revisiting the chicken in the backyard by-law – cock a fucking doodle doo
Call 490-4000. I assume you know how to operate a phone, OP? It’s good to know the ban is working though.
There seems to be a lot of assumptions made in the comments here. Perhaps the OP is new to Halifax? Frenchie, you need to chill the fuck out.
lehova, still the information is still quite available. If the OP landed yesterday and plans to stay in the city, they can contest it.
In the spirit of assumptions, let’s assume the OP is someone like me. I read my news online. I haven’t listened to the radio since I stopped driving 4 or so years ago. I don’t have cable or sattelite. And I am not an unusual case.
Being new to Halifax is challenging enough, especially as a driver. Throw in a parking ban on streets that they never seem to plow anyway, and I can sympathize with the OP.
I knew about it and I don’t even have a car …also, if you weren’t sure when it started you could have always called instead of waiting for the ticket on your windshield!
I’m in another country and I knew.
Still, first night should be warnings.
A warning would be a nice gesture by the city.
If someone doesn’t read the paper, has no phone, doesn’t listen to the radio, doesn’t speak to another living soul, and only uses the internet to communicate, you could be brand new to Halifax, GOOGLE the city, and get sent to the HRM Municipality site, and see right there when the parking ban starts. So stop using your antisocialism as an excuse for not bothering to get information.
Oh stfu you whiney little bitch. They did plenty of advertising. Just because you refuse to access traditional forms of media, it doesn’t mean that HRM has to Facebook and Tweet all the information.
I don’t have a car, or cable and I don’t listen to the radio. Yet I’ve been aware for the past month.
any doubts this parking ban isn’t about CASH moving out of your pocket and into city coffers should be quashed given the amount of snow on the ground and in the forecast. Oh, pardon me… no, no… this is about your “safety”. Yeah. Sure.
I moved out of the city and I still knew about the parking ban. Just b/c you are too busy walking around with your ipod listening to itunes.. tuning out the real world doesn’t mean the local government is out to get you. it means you should pay attention.
Whining whiner is whiny. Pay your effing ticket and suck it up. This ban has been in effect for years, it’s nothing new and it’s mentioned numerous times for weeks before the ban goes into effect.
And another thing…what about this snow shit every goddamn winter. I don’t remember any notice about getting snow this winter. And that goddamn sun thing that just shows up every morning without any warning whatsoever. And these clouds. When did they decide to drop by, huh? Fuck I wish the city would get off its ass and notify us about this unexpected shit.
Doesn’t it bother anybody that their taxes already paid for the road yet your gov’t feels the need to continue to lease it to you? That’s public land, you know? “Public” as in belongs to you and me. The adjacent properties are even taxed by the municipality specifically for it’s upkeep.
Kay, if it looks like a tax, acts like a tax and takes away your money like tax, then it’s a s.o.b but there’s nothing you can do about it.
And so it begins: another slew of needless WHINING about the parking ban…fuck sakes, get over it already.
And this whole parking ban thing has been going on for HOW many DECADES?
When I was a kid we lived in Halifax and the parking ban was just one of those things that happened every year. I don’t remember anyone bitching about it either — they just stopped parking their cars on the street when the ban began. And here’s a shocker: everyone knew about it because they took the effort to *gasp* find out for themselves!
That being said: unless you’re new to the area, you are obviously aware there’s a ban every year. As a car owner, it’s YOUR responsibility to find out when the fuck the ban starts.
I’m offshore Congo and I knew there was a winter parking ban coming on dec 14, is your street in some kind of twilight zone, – what a fuckwit
Kay, every city regulates where and when you can park on the side of the street (think street cleaning, time of day bans for rush hour), why is a ban on winter parking so bad. We get lots of snow and it is a problem for the plows to clear around cars.
So, just that I have this straight- if the city imposes a parking ban, then everyone complains. If there’s no ban and a shitload of a cars are on the street in the way, the road doesn’t get paved well, then everyone complains about the quality of the snow removal. Sounds like the city can’t win no matter what they do.
As for the OP, you obviously have access to the internet, go to the HRM main page, the parking ban info has been there for well over a month. Pretty simple. Sounds like you and your fifty neighbours need to connect with the world somehow.
I can’t believe you’re expecting a personal notice about the ban. Sure, the city’ll get right on that. Do you want it engraved, too?
Sorry, that’s “plowed”, not “paved”.
well yeah, they realized that people are going to complain anyways, but they can actually get money by fining people
so they went that route.
bugger of a time for me though around christmas… our apartment has 0…. that’s ZERO guest parking spots available so for christmas day, I have no sweet clue where the rent’s and g-rents are going to park. I’m certainly not upping my timetable by hours just to scoot them out the door before they get a ridiculous ( $50 ?!?!?!) ticket.
My dad lives in Saint John, and this year is the first year they’ve had a parking ban. Previously they alternated sides of the street for parking, or had a lot where you could park the night before a storm. He decided to show his disgust by parking on the lawn. So far no one’s bothered him about it, and several of his neighbours have done the same.
Also, I don’t drive and I don’t have cable television or a newspaper subscription but I knew about the parking ban. You know winter’s here, educate yourself about where to park. It’s your responsibility. And while you’re at it, why the fuck do you park on the street anyway if you obviously have a perfectly good parking spot? There are a ton of people willing to park off the street who are dying for your spot!
When I lived in Halifax for 10 years, I was under the impression that the ban began whenever the first true snowfall came. (ie no specific date, just look out your window and if it looks bad enough for a plow, then it means the ban begins that night). So I never took the risk and left my car on the street once that happened.
I only knew it was coming because of a bitch in the papers about Parking spots having to be vacated on the weekends…because of some bar brawl a couple years ago. It’s a bullshit idea, anyway…if there’s no snow, no ticket…if there’s snow, move your car or get the ticket & possibly towed. A blanket ban is BS & a money grab, IF the idea ( and that’s what they keep feeding us as ,the “REASON” ) is to get streets cleared, so snow crews can clean up. Then just ticketing people without any snow whatsoever, might be a good defense argument about the law, & its application & how with no bad weather a ticket isn’t warranted.
I didn’t know it started today. I get my info via online newspapers and the free daily at the bus stop and didn’t read anything about it. Clearly the city didn’t advertise that well or the masses would be aware of exactly when it starts. Funny, because I got a flyer in the mail about the Fairview overpass construction that was mentioned in the paper everyday for 2-3 weeks. And yeah, if you grew up in Halifax you’re used to it. But many people in this city, including me, did not grow up here.
I don’t own a car but…. just sayin.
I say let them park right on the street and let the plow push about 2000 lbs of snow over and beside your car – so that it takes you half a day to shovel it out – thats what most bigger cities will do _ i know i can see the fuckin grin on the operators face from here when he does it > Anyways yea – parking ban has always been in effect and it makes sense to not park your car on the street so it can be plowed properly – and also save the bitch about aforementioned 2000 lbs of snow thats been pushed against your car . Tax or no tax – ticket or no ticket – common sense say if it snows – move your car so the street can be cleaned .
Do they deploy the plows when there’s no snow or do they just deploy the parking cops? Why? Ask yourself this.
The reason they give tickets when it’s not snowing and you park your car at 7pm on the street is because the weather is an unpredictable beast. It can start snowing at 2am. Unless you have a snow alarm clock you’re not going to be able to move that car before the snowplows start rolling.
Drivers in this city are rather whiney. This is an old city, built long before cars, and therefore we have very narrow streets in the downtown areas. Even many of the suburbs can’t handle the massive snowplows the city employs for snow removals.
Also, even if it never snows at all perhaps that little bit of extra “tax” from the ticket is a nice money earner for a city that can barely afford the few big snowfalls we get every year. And since the tickets are so easily avoidable I don’t think anyone has any right to complain about anything.
Last night’s ticketing was a cash grab, nothing more. No reason at all that they could not have issued warnings or put a flyer on your car for the first few days since there is no snow. But HRM needs the cash so they can spend it on a staff report about chickens. What a useless municipality we live in.
The ban’s been in effect for at least 20 years and most Canadian municipalities have one in one form or another. We have winter and snow. In fact they did try the no ban til it snows and it didn’t work. How many people woke up in the middle of the night when the snow started falling… I thought so.
Kay so what if we pay for the streets and we “own” them. We own the police, military and every other government department out there. That’s doesn’t mean we have the right to go into any file we wish anytime we want to. It doesn’t mean we get to go into planning or operations rooms.
Well put it this way the parking ban covers certain months regardless of snow – bans a ban – park elsewhere or risk a ticket – does running red lights tickets only occur on tuesdays thursdays and sundays? No they apply always – same as the ban does – so why even bitch unless you just moved here from another city ( like calgary that doesnt ban parking on, nor plow sidestreets ) rthis winter and didn’t know . All of us from here know this. And i can’t wait for the bitches to come when people get pissed cause their street is improperly plowed because theres cars parked all over it .
okay, maybe think about it like this… when we invented roads (for the horse and buggy) and then invented tax (to pave and maintain the roads) did we also invent the idea of charging even more to lease it to the citizen? It’s rare in Canada to charge a toll but a parking ticket is right along the same lines, that is, a revenue stream for the municipality and a job or ten for parking cops and administrators. It wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t ‘law’ and the citizen had a choice to seek out ‘public’ parking instead of ‘private’ or pay-through-the-nose parking. I just take exception to the citizen needlessly serving as cash cow to government and their big fat pensions.
Clarified . If people obeyed what signs about parking and or road rules , there would be no tickets – therefore – no revenue . It’s the parkers/drivers fault – posted is posted – don’t whine – just do the limit, park where your suppose to park and obey traffic regulations – therefore – you get to be a non contributor to the city / provencial coffers . Pretty simple in my eyes . I thinks it’s Dummy beware in this instance .
Pavillion…get real ! They issue tickets because they can…because it raises a shitload of free cash, for them to waste ! If it starts snowing in the middle of the night & you didn’t check the weather, or got unlucky & didn’t get up & move your car THEN YOU GET THE DAMN TICKET !
But just going around on a night like tonight, when its wet & raining& the overnight forecast is +3 degrees & cloudy with showers…there is no need to ticket cars for being in the way of “snow removal” THERE IS NO DAMN SNOW FOR THEM TO REMOVE.
I don’t understand why that simple concept can’t be easily grasped !?!?!?!
Its r e a l l y s i m p l e …it snows = get ticket
it isn’t snowing = NO ticket !
you mean you were on mars all last week,when this was spread all over the media,papers,radio,t.v.,and yes,even on the msn homepage.serves you fucking right then,for not being in the real world.but i guess your stupid texting everyone and everything kinda fucked you up this time.jesus people,look out your fucking doors and windows,it’s december.time for the bans already.
Use a parking lot, bitches. Then ask yourself if you REALLY need a car.
“”Do they deploy the plows when there’s no snow or do they just deploy the parking cops? Why? Ask yourself this.””
Exactly, it’s a cash cow…and Halifax is among the worst cities in Canada with it’s “blanket” ban on parking.
Other cities have reasonable rules that forbid parking when major snow is forecast…or there is a minmum amount of snow that must fall before the ban kicks in….but good ole Halifax likes the money too much.
It really amazes me to see all the folks here support this silly ban…with comments like “the weather is an unpredictable beast!” (oh my!) and we “have winter and snow…”
Wow, who to believe?
LMAO @ Coast readers toeing the little lines drawn for them by grown-ups…
If you can’t afford to park your car in the winter, you can’t afford a car.
I really love how people buy a car and don’t expect any costs other than the car itself and gas.
I rather get the feeling that some people believe that all parking tickets are bad. Tell that to firefighters who have to work around, or through, cars parked in front of fire hydrants or somesuch thing.
I don’t disagree with the fact that the winter ban parking tickets make money for the city. That’s hardly debatable after all. However, you’re seriously overlooking the fact that parking tickets are very avoidable.
Are you really going to die because you had to walk one hundred metres from a parking lot to your house instead of parking in front of it? If parking is too expensive for you you should have found a place to live with parking available.
I don’t get the feeling that Halifax is overflowing with parking ticket cash. From what I can recall of last year the city was in a panic because they had a shortfall in the snow removal budget.
Or perhaps, instead of parking tickets, the city could impose a large winter snow removal tax on every household living within city limits? That way at least it’s evenly spread across everyone in Halifax.
Pretty Kitty: how about when you have guests over at your apartment for the night? do we have to afford their parking as well?
Pavillion: Firefighters have to work around cars the other 8 months of the year…
I just figure the property taxes paid on a residence plus the cost of registrations combined with income tax and provincial tax, couple all that with nary-a-fucking-snowflake, and this should afford me the “privilege” of parking on the street in front of my home where people who don’t live on my street are welcome to park during daylight hours. Someone said you can’t afford a car if you can’t afford… a house with a driveway and/or a garage on top of the cost of the car, its maintenance, its registrations , its insurance, and and and… its as if my luck (hard work, actually) in having independent transport has made me a target for the city cash cow. WTF???
I don’t live on the street therefore I’m made of money that the city ought to have? Fuck that! There’s something wrong with you bitches (could it be you’re too young to drive?). The “winter” parking ban is bullshit designed to separate you from your money and that is all. We know this is true because (A) there’s not a plow to be seen yet the tickets make it out and (B) when you don’t move your car it’s ticketed, not towed. They’d all have you believe this ban is for your “safety” but what’s unsafe about a car that didn’t move on a night of no snow? If there was snow the thing gets ticketed but not towed. If your safety were in peril I dare say the tow trucks would be deployed at the same time and since they’re not…. Why is this okay with you, bitches? Is it because your “Daddy” told you so?
Frosty… give that bitch an award. Best bitch ever.
Oh my goodness the negativity! Just because you knew the ban was on doesn’t mean everyone else does, or that since it’s happened for years it’s right. Everyone has a right to make comments… Some sympathy, people!
I love how every year we’re short on the snow removal budget….
every year.
see a pattern here???
no?????
earmark more fuckin money to snow removal so that when (by some fucking fluke) it’s not all needed, you can allocate to some other unfortunate group.
I’m willing to bet (with 2:1 odds) that we go over the snow budget again this year.
1. Don’t park on the street, you won’t get a ticket. ( which means no tax )
2. If there was no fine, would anyone care? Would this bitch even exist? People would just park where they wanted anyway. Prefer the city to automatically tow?
3. If they did the ” only when it snows ” thing, the OP and many of you would still be on here bitching because, well heck , you didn’t KNOW it was supposed to snow that night. “Insert excuses from posts above”
4. We all know how reliable weather forecasting is. Just because Cindy Day and Peter Coade say 0cm or 20cm of snow doesn’t make it so.
5. You can’t have it both ways. Streets properly cleared by the city or parking that’s convenient for you.
For years, the ban has gone from blanket ban to only snowfall ban and back and forth. Seeing as many Haligonians are dumbasses when it comes to parking logic (blocking bus stops, hydrants, parking in places that are no stopping because large vehicles can’t get through when cars are there, etc…), having the blanket ban doesn’t surprise me. It means Mr. Plow had to bury too many cars in winters past.
If you want the blanket ban to go away, start a petition. If you want it to stay away, employ logic in your parking decisions and encourage your circle to do same.
And for those of you who think parking tickets are a cash grab, keep in mind it’s a 100% preventable form of taxation.
Elvis Q, your arguements are all pretty weak and pointless.
1. For many people there is no alternative to parking on the street.
2. Yes. no. and yes you fucking idiot.
3. 120 days in a row of getting ticketed no matter what is just a tad bit worse than only getting a ticket if you’re stupid enough to leave your car outside during a snow storm. I think you’d feel a bit better about getting a ticket if there was a legitimate reason.
4. Either way it only really snows enough for a car to actually mess up snow removal like 5 or 6 times a winter. the rest of the times its only like 5 or 10 CM and would not really matter at all if there were a few cars in the way.
5. yes you can, people have already said that some cities have alternating sides.
Nevile S, your arguments are pretty weak themselves.
1. The parking Ban is NO surprise, if you don’t have the sense to find a place with parking then that’s your hard luck. Having a car is a luxury and if you can’t tend to it properly, maybe its time to have a good look at whether you can actually afford it.
2.If there’s no fine, people won’t care. I stand by this. This is already why people “take a chance” and leave their cars out, they might not get ticketed
enjoy getting towed, you fucking moron
3/4 just because there’s no snow at 12:05 pm when you go to bed doesn’t mean it won’t be there in the morning. Are you going to get up and go round making sure people move their cars? The point is to have the road clear for cleaning.
5 cm of snow with a light drizzle or a warm day quickly becomes hard ice if its not removed quickly. Then it builds up. 5cm + 5 cm = 10cm with the streets getting more narrow due to ice build up on the curb.
5. They already do this with street cleaning in the summer. GUESS WHAT they have to hand out tickets because people still park on the no parking side.
While I agree that this would help out all but the idiots, the end result is the same. Streets not cleared.
I’ve been suck behind buses, because people park on both sides of a narrow road, without having the sense to see that the bus can’t fit by. This is what the city has to deal with.
“winter = parking ban, same time every year…..get a fucking life douche bag! If it’s your first time owning a car in the winter, i guess this is a lesson learned.”
actually the parking ban was re-instated last year after a 4-5 year hiatus. Coincidently, last year Securitas took over the ticketing duties for the HRM….I also find it interesting that the tickets have gone up to $50 from the original $25.
It was reinstated after trying the ” if it snows move your car” idea, which failed miserably
Interesting that Securitas is doing ticketing now. Now THERE is a money grab. I doubt it’ll even be safe to take a chance anymore .
Why did the ‘if it snows move your car’ idea fail.
I say it failed because they didn’t put the towtrucks into the mix. I’m plowing a street & there’s cars in the way, call the tow service. Get every tow truck in Metro Halifax & outside who want to work & the city sets up an impond yard in an industrial/municipal area. Bring the vehicles there, you pay your parking ticket & you pay your tow charge to get your car back !
The city gets its money…& the towtruck guy’s get to have a very merry christmas, if it snows before the holiday. (we’ll see as many towtrucks in metro as we do, pickups with plows )
I’m willing to bet 10 years of my life that the problem diminishes to insignificant proportions after the 3rd snow fall !
I’ll still have problems on nights it snows when we’re all in the Metro Centre tearing out a show & we don’t finish until 2 or 3 am ! But I suppose I could simply walk off the job at 1 am, because the amount of times it actually snows when we’re loading out in the winter, is only once or twice a year.
How are the tow trucks going through the snow to get to the cars that are blocking the snow removal?
As soon as it starts snowing the tow trucks hit the road !
I’ve got a 4×4, snow has to me more than 18 inches deep to stop my truck in 4 wheel with winter studded tires on an uphill climb from a dead stop.
Once I’m moving it takes even deeper snow. White Juan slowed me down…it didn’t stop me, & only snow drifts higher than the hood of my truck were impassable. Bigger trucks than a 3/4 ton will go through even more .
Putting a ticket on the window of a vehicle parked on the street when its snowing isn’t going to help ‘clear the roads”
Or perhaps in la la land it might. But I’ve never been there, perhaps you could answer that question for all of us .
IF it’s an event of extremely heavy snow, cars are not parked in the driving part of the road…they’re off to the side.
Where plows go down a street & have vehicles in the way, behind them come the wreckers, & they pull the offending vehicles out of there for the next pass.
The deterent then isn’t a $50.00 ticket…its a $50.00 ticket & a 80 to 100 dollar tow on top of it. PLUS it only happens when it’s needed. Ticketing vehicles to aid in snow removal when there is no snow is a typical stupid government solution. When there is no problem…there should be no interference in our lives by Government, IMO.
So your solution to snow removal is to get as many vehicles on the road as possible to get as many other vehicles off the road as fast as possible, instead of not having any of those vehicles there to begin with?