| November 15, 2012 If you live, work or do business downtown, you have probably had a less than welcoming experience with the Greensboro parking police. The truth is that everyone who has ever gotten a parking ticket downtown is being discriminated against because there is a class of citizens who do not receive parking tickets.
It is a little hard to believe but it is true. The Girls Gone Wild bus that comes a couple of times a year to the Greene Street Club can park wherever it wants for as long as it wants and it doesn't get a ticket, even if a parking enforcement officer sees that it is illegally parked and the owner refuses to move the bus to a legal parking space.
As it turns out other vans, buses and trucks that bands travel in also seem to have free reign downtown. I know this because the driveway to the parking lot used by The Rhino Times World Headquarters is often partially or totally blocked by these vehicles. But so far the city has found excuses to keep from giving them tickets.
So if you want to park with impunity downtown, get rid of that Ford Focus or Prius and get yourself and old Chevy van, put a ratty trailer behind it and paint The Dave Clark Five on the side. Evidently, the parking police won't touch you. With a van like that you can block driveways and park in no-parking zones. Shoot, you can just stop in the street and block a lane of traffic if you want. The parking police will be busy standing by a car waiting for the meter to expire to give someone who works downtown a ticket.
But if you really want freedom, buy an old bus and paint Girls Gone Wild on the side and you can probably park on the steps to city hall. No, to do that you need to paint WFMY or FOX on the side of your van and tape a big old satellite dish on the roof, then you can really park wherever you want.
A couple of weeks ago, the Girls Gone Wild bus parked, partially blocking the driveway to The Rhino Times World Headquarters parking lot. It was still possible to get in and out of the lot – meaning there was room to squeeze past the bus – but you took your life in your hands because you could not see the oncoming traffic because of the bus.
I called the Greensboro parking police and was told something would be done about it. Two hours later, when it was getting close to 5 p.m., when everyone would be leaving the lot and risking their lives as they pulled out on to Greene Street, I called again to find out why the bus had not moved. I was told that the Girls Gone Wild bus driver had said that as soon as the car behind the trailer the bus was pulling moved he would back the bus up into a parking space. This was good enough for the Greensboro parking police.
Here is where it gets really interesting. Although I was polite, I was not happy that Girls Gone Wild buses get special parking privileges. We had an employee once who owed over $1,700 in parking penalties in part because the city would not be reasonable about payment. Not only was the bus over the yellow line – a crime that for most of us will get an immediate $35 ticket – it was partially blocking a driveway. But the decision by the parking police was that it was allowable for as long as it was convenient for the Girls Gone Wild bus.
The parking enforcement officer agreed that was not fair, and the next day came to our office to apologize and explain what happened. Unfortunately, the explanation is even more damning. He said that after our conversation he went back to the Greene
Street Club to tell them that the Girls Gone Wild bus needed to back up into a parking space. But he was told the driver had already gone to the motel. So he waited two hours for the driver to come back and move the bus.
During that two hours, and the previous four hours that the Girls Gone Wild bus was parked in front of our driveway, it never received a ticket. So, instead of the city parking enforcement officer coming out and writing a ticket every 15 minutes or having the bus towed, the enforcement officer (who you and I were paying) was directing traffic so that people could get out of the parking lot safely.
Does this make any sense? Has a parking enforcement officer ever, instead of writing you a ticket, offered to direct traffic for you, or offered to allow you to park in a tow zone for as long as it was convenient for you? Have you ever told the parking police that although you are parked at an expired meter, the next time you have a quarter you will put it in a meter, and they said that was just fine and then they moved along?
I was about to get over the Girls Gone Wild bus incident when a similar situation occurred last week with a regular band bus and a delivery truck. Both were partially blocking the driveway, so I called the parking police asking someone to come write a ticket because these drivers have no reason not to block the driveway if the laws are not enforced. They know they won't be ticketed and they certainly have no concern for other businesses in the area.
I called to see if this time I could get someone to do something. I was told that all the parking enforcement officers get off work at 4:30 p.m. and I would have to call the Police Department.
Who makes out these schedules? The most traffic downtown is after 4:30 p.m.. It's the time when an illegally parked vehicle can really cause problems. But there are no parking police because they all get off work at 4:30. Has no one in the parking enforcement division ever heard of a swing shift where you have people working different hours to cover the most difficult periods?
There is something going on and I have no idea what it is. For some reason clubs like Greene Street – that cost the city a lot of money in law enforcement and trash pickup – are being given special privileges. Are Girls Gone Wild buses really what we want in the downtown? If that isn't what we want, why are we ticketing normal everyday folks who work and do business downtown and allowing Girls Gone Wild and band vans special privileges?
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