Palos Verdes Estates Parking Bust Leaves Opinion Divided

Everyone has an opinion on the great Palos Verdes Estates parking bust.

Police Chief Gary Johansen said some people have called him a defender of the law, while others say he has turned the affluent city into a police state.

The source of the strong feelings: the arrest, handcuffing, fingerprinting and frisking April 21 of two business-women who, police say, wiped chalk marks off the tires of their cars to avoid parking tickets.

The Police Department filed misdemeanor charges this week against Rosina Baur, manager of the Coldwell Banker real estate office in the Malaga Cove Plaza shopping center, and Anne Bisco, a receptionist with the same office.

If convicted, each faces up to a $1,000 fine and six months in jail. They are to appear in South Bay Municipal Court on June 6.

The case has aroused strong feelings on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, where Baur has lived for 30 years and Bisco arrived several weeks ago.

Some residents have called or written to praise the 23-member Police Department for freeing more parking space at the crowded shopping center, while others called the arrests a gross overreaction to a minor problem. The 50 writers and callers are evenly divided on the issue, Johansen said.

“Nobody is in the middle,” Johansen said. “Either we are the Gestapo, or they say, ‘Right on, you did exactly the right thing.’ ”

The incident has its roots in an ongoing parking problem in Malaga Cove Plaza. A meter maid who came to enforce the one-hour parking limit at the picturesque, Spanish-style shopping center reported that she left chalk marks on Baur’s Mazda and Bisco’s Toyota, only to return later and find the marks wiped off.

The meter maid reportedly notified Officer Robert Connor, who walked into the Coldwell Banker office and told Baur and Bisco that they were under arrest. The women followed Connor to his squad car, where they were handcuffed and driven to Police Department headquarters for booking, authorities said.

Bisco acknowledged that she wiped a chalk mark off her car’s tire.

Moving Car Legal

But Baur denied that she did, saying that she merely moved her car to another space when she saw the meter maid coming. Such a move is legal since the one-hour time limit applies to individual spaces, not to the entire lot, a police official said.

The women said their arrests were unnecessary and that Officer Connor told them he was going to arrest them to “teach them a lesson” against parking illegally in the lot.

They asked the Police Department not to press the charges.

Bisco said she expects to be through with the case after going to court and paying a fine. But Baur has hired an attorney, Ray Legg, to fight the charge. Legg said several witnesses will verify that Baur moved her car and did not rub off a chalk mark.

“The officer was clearly wrong and still went ahead and arrested her,” Legg said.

Adverse Publicity

Johansen said that Connor and other officers have been instructed not to comment on the incident but that the department is “feeling put upon” by the adverse publicity from the case.

Johansen insisted that the department acted properly in arresting the two women; tickets are not issued for misdemeanors. “This is the only law we have on the books to deal with this problem,” he said. “We didn’t have any other choices.”

The chief defended Connor’s arrest of Baur and Bisco, saying the women would have objected more and suffered greater embarrassment if police reports and citations had been completed in the public shopping center.

The handcuffing, fingerprinting and frisking are all standard procedures that are not waived for any arrestees, Johansen said.

Johansen said it is ironic that merchants should complain about parking enforcement, since patrols at Malaga Cove Plaza were increased in March at the request of the Malaga Cove Businessman’s Assn.

“We’ve had complaints from business people that their customers have no place to park,” Johansen said. “It’s kind of like they want it both ways.”

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