BUFFALO, N.Y. — Buffalo Parking Enforcement and Public Works tell 2 On Your Side they're definitely going to fix some parking signs on Pearl Street that are in the wrong spots.
2 On Your Side got this response from the city after a viewer reached out to us about a questionable parking ticket.
"I came to you guys because I was upset," explains Jim Vice from Eden. "It made me ill. And I thought, 'You know, they're not going to listen to me. They'll listen to you.'"
Vice reached out to Channel 2 yesterday afternoon after he paid a $40 parking ticket that he knew was a mistake.
He told us he was ticketed for parking in a handicap metered parking spot in front of Shea's Performing Arts Center on Pearl Street.
The problem is that the metered parking spot is sandwiched between two signs that say "No Standing Any Time."
"You can only have one or the other," said an exasperated Vice.
He admits he only noticed the signage change and that it didn't make any sense when he found the ticket on his van window a few weeks ago, "I couldn't understand what was going on because I've been parking there 5, 6, 7 years."
Vice tells 2 On Your Side he wrote a letter to city parking enforcement and also went to contest the ticket on Thursday.
But he claims no one would listen to him and he gave us a copy of the receipt that shows he paid the ticket, "It's a waste of my time, a waste of my 40 dollars, a day of my pay...I could go on and on."
2 On Your Side contacted both parking enforcement and public works, and the commissioners of both departments went out to see the parking situation for themselves.
In separate phone calls to 2 On Your Side, both Commissioner Kevin Helfer (Division of Parking Enforcement) and Commissioner Steven Stepniak (Department of Public Works) each admitted the signage was in the wrong place. They said the signs should not have enclosed that handicap parking spot.
Friday afternoon, Helfer said the signs could be moved this weekend. Stepniak told 2 On Your Side the signs could be moved as soon as Friday night, and that it all depends on engineers taking a look at the street and how moving the signs might affect the fire lane next to the metered parking spot.
We're told, since parking enforcement is now aware of the mistake, no one else will be ticketed in the meantime.
As for Jim Vice, Helfer tells us he'll get a refund and an apology. Vice tells 2 On Your Side he'd keep us posted if and when the city follows through.