Parking Tickets Spark T-Shirt Lampoon : Balboa Resident Wears, Markets Garb With Caricature Message

Phil Burnett, a resident of Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach, has tapped a frustrated population of residents and merchants on the crowded peninsula, where they are buying his original-design T-shirt as fast as he can have them made.

One side of the white T-shirt features a picture of a parking ticket with a red slash through it and a caption reading “$27 for a parking ticket is a crime.” The other side shows a cartoon in which a muscular arm grasps a meter maid by the neck, with the message “Welcome to Newport.”

“For the sake of living (on Balboa Peninsula), I always have to tack on a couple hundred dollars a year in parking fines,” said Burnett, a house painter by trade. The hassles of trying to keep money in 30-minute parking meters or find a place to move his car on street-sweeping day drove Burnett to designing what he believes may become “the beach shirt of 1986.”

Since their debut last month, Burnett has sold nearly 100 of what he has dubbed his “ticket tease” shirts for $15 each, with help from the Balboa branch library and local merchants. Burnett said his T-shirt design, drawn by Julie Pridham of Orange, is copyrighted to discourage imitations.

At the Balboa library, Burnett’s shirt has been displayed on the community affairs bulletin board, along with his telephone number for those who want to order one. Jackie Headly, the branch supervisor, said the library recognizes its function as a community service facility and often lets local residents voice their views.

“If someone wanted to say that they thought $27 parking tickets were great, we’d let them put that up, too,” Headly said. She added that the shirt would be taken down soon to make room for other community announcements.

Ron Rogers, a sergeant in the Newport Beach police traffic division, said he hadn’t heard any specific grumblings about the shirt from other officers, but said that the depiction of a violent act against a meter maid “was certainly inappropriate” in his mind.

Newport Beach’s acting police chief, Capt. Arb Campbell, said there were no plans to ask the library, which is also a city department, to take the shirt down. But he said he could understand if members of his department were upset by the depiction of an officer being strangled.

A Balboa couple who were writing down Burnett’s telephone number outside the library said the shirt was “great,” although they are not in total disagreement with the parking laws.

“We feel sort of half and half about the subject. We’re not unhappy with the law, but we wish there could be more leniency about it. Even if (the meter maid) sees you going to move your car, she’ll give you a ticket,” said the woman, who declined to be identified.

Cassidy’s Bar on the peninsula has also helped Burnett promote his shirt. Nancy Mathis at Cassidy’s thinks the shirt should be taken in fun.

“Everyone in Newport has parking problems, especially in the summer. We live in a resort town,” Mathis said. “It’s something to laugh about more than anything.”

Burnett said his shirt has been discovered by other communities with similar parking problems. He said he is currently designing one for a T-shirt store in Laguna Beach and is considering localizing the scene for Long Beach and Westwood as well.

In Newport Beach, the fine is $27 for parking in a red or posted “no parking any time” zone, and $17 for an expired meter or posted street sweep violation. The city brought in $1,273,375 from meters and fines last year, a Finance Department spokesman said.