Handicapped Driver Wins Fight Over Parking in Restricted Areas

Alex Weisberg, a 72-year-old disabled man, says he is waging his fight with the City of Los Angeles strictly on principle. And, as of Wednesday, he appeared to be winning his lonely battle over handicapped parking.

Weisberg, a retired dentist who suffers from acute arthritis, has had a hard time walking for any distance since he had his left knee replaced a few years ago. Last February, he was issued a placard for his car designating his handicapped status. Since then, getting around the city has been much easier, he said.

Ticket on Windshield

He and his wife, Jean, were bound for a neighborhood delicatessen last summer when Weisberg parked on a quiet residential street just north of Pico Boulevard. The street had signs posted that prohibited all those without a permit from parking, but Weisberg had parked on similarly restricted streets in Beverly Hills and his handicapped placard had exempted him. This time he returned about an hour later to find a ticket slapped on his windshield.

Weisberg called the Department of Transportation to explain that he is disabled and that his state-issued placard exempts him from the parking restrictions imposed in preferential parking districts. Transportation officials told him no one is exempt: Pay the $28.

“If we were to make exceptions, then we’d lose all the meaning of preferential parking,” explained Bob White, city parking enforcement manager.

Weisberg, who had never fought a parking ticket before, was determined to point out the vagueness of the law. “It’s not a clear-cut issue,” Weisberg said.

Planned Own Defense

He contacted an attorney, the Automobile Club and several social service organizations, but no one seemed to take much interest. So Weisberg did some research and planned his own defense.

“No place in any law or ordinance is there any prohibition of parking in a preferential parking zone by a person and/or vehicle with a handicapped parking permit,” he read from a statement in Traffic Court on Wednesday.

The preferential parking ordinance “contains provisions which are reasonable and necessary to ensure the effectiveness of the program,” he said. “Denying the ability of a handicapped person to park in these areas is neither reasonable nor necessary.”

Dany Margolies, judge pro tem of the West Los Angeles Municipal Court, said she had never encountered this issue and put off ruling for several hours so she could study the preferential parking ordinance and the California Vehicle Code.

After studying the law, Margolies ruled that Weisberg was not guilty of a parking violation. “The Vehicle Code,” she held, “does not clearly preclude the activity in which Mr. Weisberg was engaged.”

However, although the judge has resolved the matter for Weisberg, the issue is far from settled for other disabled drivers.

‘Continue to Enforce It’

“It’s the judge’s prerogative to cancel that citation, but we were totally within our rights in issuing that citation and we will continue to enforce it as we have,” White said. “If we were to make exceptions, then we’d lose all the meaning of preferential parking. Our position is to uphold what is now the law.”

White acknowledges that nothing is specifically stated in the preferential parking ordinance about handicapped parking. The dispute may signal the need for new legislation or at least an amendment to the preferential parking ordinance, he said.

Weisberg said he is happy for the temporary victory but plans to talk to his assemblyman to help put an end to the confusion.

City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, author of Los Angeles’ 1979 permit parking ordinance, said he plans to introduce a measure in January that should help resolve the conflict. He will propose an exemption to allow those with state-issued disability placards to park in preferential parking districts.

“I don’t believe the spirit and intent of the preferential parking ordinance is in any way undermined by allowing people with disabilities who have California state placards for their automobiles to park in those restricted zones,” Yaroslavsky said.

He said that until two weeks ago he had thought the disabled were already exempt. A resident of an area in the process of establishing a preferential parking zone told him otherwise.

Yaroslavsky estimated that probably no more than one or two cars with disabled placards would likely park on any street with preferential parking. “I honestly don’t think that there’s anybody in any of these districts who would object to allowing disabled people to park in their districts,” he said.

Advocates for the disabled heartily agree.

“This is an access issue,” said Nadia Powers, president of the Los Angeles City Advisory Council on Disabilities. “If you have somebody with a handicapped placard, they shouldn’t be ticketed.”

Mike Silverman, an attorney for the North Los Angeles County Regional Center for the Developmentally Disabled, recommended that parts of streets in preferential parking zones be designated for the handicapped. “The laws should be reworked to give access to the disabled and to show compassion,” he said.

Still, city transportation officials said they do not believe that incidents like this one are common enough to warrant concern.

“I don’t see it as being a problem,” White said. “If it were something that were a common occurence . . . but right now we’re really not that concerned about it because of the low percentage of incidents. If the problem becomes large enough, it would be something we’d have to take a look at.

“Once we open that door, then we seem to be losing some of the control on preferential parking and thereby doing the citizens of the neighborhood a disservice.”