Giving No Quarter : Parking Enforcers, Motorists Square Off in La Jolla

In reality, it’s just a metallic blue bicycle with thick-treaded tires anda nifty leather seat. But, for Sandra Brokaw, it’s become a two-wheeled Sherman tank--a front line of defense in her battle against the city’s army of parking control officers.

Each morning when she heads off for her downtown La Jolla office, Brokaw forsakes her able-bodied Mercedes for the blue monster. Bicycles, she reasons, can’t get parking tickets.

Marilyn Carlettini plays a different strategy. An alarm clock on her desk sounds every two hours--a signal that it’s once again time to move her car to yet another street-side parking spot.

But the tactic isn’t foolproof. Last week--about 10 minutes after making her third such move of the day--the editor of a downtown La Jolla business newsletter said she was slapped with a $17 ticket anyway.

A white dash that a parking control officer had chalked on her tire earlier in the day had failed to wear off. When she explained the apparent mistake, the parking officer reportedly replied, “That’s just tough, lady, rules are rules” before zipping away on her two-toned scooter.

Welcome to Car Wars in La Jolla.

These days, Brokaw and Carlettini brandish tickets like so many battle scars. They claim that a growing number of downtown business owners, workers, shoppers and tourists are falling victim to an overzealous city parking control staff they say has become increasingly rude and contemptuous.

The officers--sometimes called meter maids even though there are few parking meters in La Jolla--have been branded as thugs, wanna-be cops and Gestapo soldiers, green-eyed outsiders who are merely envious of La Jolla’s affluent lifestyle.

But the biggest problem, some business people say, is that the ticket-writers are everywhere. Although it’s only a staff of three--with a fourth part-time worker recently added--they seemingly lurk around every corner and behind every palm tree in the wealthy seaside enclave.

Armed with their racy scooters, chalk sticks and hand-held computers that in a matter of seconds can print up a summons as well as tell them when a vehicle has exceeded its limit of five unpaid tickets, the parking control staff can make life miserable, say downtown business people.

Each control officer routinely writes as many as 100 tickets a day--which demand fees anywhere from $17 to $120 for parking in a handicapped zone--and can have a car towed with a simple call on a walkie-talkie.

Recent months have brought stiffer parking enforcement. In November, officers citywide began issuing multiple tickets to vehicles left overtime in a parking zone. So, instead of receiving just one $17 ticket at a two-hour zone, motorists can now receive up to three tickets a day if their vehicle remains there over six hours--for a total of $51.

Police also began citing cars blocking commercial driveways and those that have been pulled onto tree lawns, the grassy area between the road and the sidewalk.

In La Jolla, the result has many motorists looking over their shoulders, cutting short power lunches and dashing from business meetings so they don’t overstay their one- or two-hour time limits on congested downtown streets.

“They’ve got us right where they want us,” said Carlettini, editor and co-owner of the La Jolla Press. “Like most people, I don’t fight my tickets. I haven’t got time to take off work and go to court and play their silly games. But I’m as crafty as they are. You find ways to remove the chalk one way or another.”

For their part, parking control officers say it’s a two-way street--that the nastiness comes both ways. Passing motorists routinely hurl insults at officers--civilian employees of the San Diego Police Department--who are just trying to do their jobs.

And too many La Jollans have been caught in the act with sponges and spray bottles, trying to erase telltale chalk marks left by parking officers--who use the device to recall how long a car has been left in a particular spot.

Some offices even hire an employee to regularly erase chalk marks on their supervisors’ cars the moment a control officer is out of sight, police say.

But spoiled La Jollans should realize that their neighbors in other beach communities as well as downtown San Diego have it no better, authorities say. Parking enforcement is strict citywide, they claim, not just in La Jolla.

“What Gestapo tactics? We’re not the heavies here,” said Janet Reyman, senior code compliance supervisor with the Police Department’s traffic division--who has 33 officers writing tickets throughout the city.

“Because of the nature of the job, there’s going to be confrontations. Our people are tactful. But they’re giving out bad news eight hours a day. It’s hard to make getting a parking ticket a pleasant experience.”

But Sandra Brokaw says she’s had enough with surly city servants. Next month, she’ll show up in traffic court to contest a handful of parking tickets from recent weeks. And she’ll have with her a dozen or so friends--other downtown business-types who plan to tell the judge just how tired they are of doing battle with La Jolla’s supposedly testy meter maids.

“I’m going to fight these things,” said Brokaw, who runs a downtown public relations and marketing firm. “I’m going to tell the judge how rude and nasty these women have become. They treat us like scum. They act as though we’re urinating on the sidewalk, not parking next to it.”

“They think we’re all rich and can afford these tickets just because we live in La Jolla. Well, I have news for these people. We work just like they do. Some probably make more money than us.”

Dissent has taken various forms. The bimonthly La Jolla Press has printed several snidely written columns on the meter maids--including a picture of a parking control scooter illegally parked and the suggestion that meter maids are on the lookout for cars known to belong to local businessmen.

“We’ve humorously allowed the public to see our point of view,” said La Jolla Press owner Rafael Hinton. “It’s like a razz, and we’ve gotten more response from those articles than anything we’ve ever printed.”

Other business people question what the city is doing with all the money it collects on tickets. During the last fiscal year alone, more than 684,000 tickets were written--or about 1.6 for each San Diego resident, officials say.

And, in 1991, San Diego officials estimate they will receive $10 million in revenue from parking citations citywide.

Although there are no statistics to show how much of that money will come from the pockets of La Jollans, many residents already in favor of incorporation say they’re not getting enough back in city services.

At the center of the parking ticket controversy is a simple fact: La Jolla has precious few parking spaces in a downtown where land is too expensive to donate to much-needed public parking garages.

Last month, the La Jolla Town Council--an advisory board to the San Diego City Council--voted against installing parking meters along busy downtown streets. But some merchants are now rethinking that decision.

Some business people need their cars near their offices for loading materials or making frequent trips and say it isn’t feasible to rent a monthly space sometimes blocks away. And they claim there are often lengthy waiting lists for such spots.

The solution, they say, lies in extending the time limits along residential and some business streets to three hours. Or issuing business people monthly parking stickers so they can leave their cars in a spot for an entire day.

At the very least, they reason, parking meters would allow them to keep a spot once they found it--instead of engaging in a feverish and not always successful hunt for a new parking spot every one or two hours.

Police say the parking limits were requested by La Jolla businessmen in the first place, and they would consider increasing the limits if so requested by the community.

Judy Rose says it’s too late for any such solution. Neither Rose, a sales representative who made frequent trips to La Jolla, nor many of her friends comes to La Jolla much anymore. They say the control officers have literally driven them from town.

“They’re ruthless, not even human,” she said after receiving 11 tickets in 12 months. “Emotionless robots.”

In December, Rose had her car towed for non-payment of seven traffic violations. As the tow truck arrived, she recalls standing in the street crying, stamping her feet, explaining that she needed her car for her job, that she had two children she needed to pick up--all to no avail.

“They took away my livelihood for a bunch of parking tickets,” she recalls. “They weren’t even moving violations! They were parking tickets!”

Debra Shipler has heard all the excuses. But the 22-year-old parking control officer says that, if people pay their tickets on time, their cars won’t get towed. “It doesn’t matter who they are or where they live--even in La Jolla--people have to find alternate parking,” she said. “If not, they’re going to get tickets.”

Another meter maid, a soft-spoken 26-year-old South Carolina native who only gave her last name as Bennett, said she is regularly heckled by motorists.

“People yell at you even though you’re not even writing them a ticket,” she said. “They tell you to get a real job. They call you every name in the book. So, you already have a reputation with people. Even if you’re a nice person, they have an attitude about you right from the start.”

Bennett stays busy. Within 10 minutes, she had ticketed a half-dozen cars on Girard Avenue one day last week--including an over-parked Mercedes and a delivery truck that bore an upside-down license plate without a registration sticker.

But parking officers have discretion whether to write or not to write a ticket, she said. “People approach their jobs differently--just like judges and police officers. Some won’t bend the rules under any circumstances. Others will.”

There’s one parking scofflaw, however, whom meter maids consider their No. 1 enemy: the chalk mark erasers.

“We’ve confiscated homemade meter-beater kits that come complete with erasers and funny little notes,” Reyman said. “You catch people in the act--La Jolla women in their fur coats with squirt bottles.

“Sure, our parking officers have a heart. Some motorists are allowed to slide. But the chalk erasers are going to get ticketed, period. And we’re on the lookout for them, you can bet on that.”