‘Pete Vale, P.I.’ Proves Ticket Was a Mile-High Mistake

Pete Vale Jr. of Torrance was thoroughly perplexed when the city of Denver notified him that he owed $16 for a 1990 parking ticket.

“I’ve never been to Denver, Colo., Never in my life,” Vale maintains. So he telephoned and wrote Denver parking officials, enclosing a copy of his California car registration and protesting that the ticket was a mistake.

Nonetheless, the Denver Parking Violations Bureau wrote back that an “administrative investigation” had confirmed the ticket was valid.

“If you wish to further contest the ticket(s),” the letter stated, “you may do so by appearing at Room 103 in Annex 1 at 1445 Cleveland Place, Denver, Colo.”

Never having been to Denver, Vale had no plans to go now. So he began piecing together an intricate paper trail to prove his whereabouts on Dec. 5, 1990, the date the ticket was issued.

“Pete Vale, P.I. That’s what my daughter calls me,” the 62-year-old retired aerospace engineer says.

Vale found that on that December day, he had visited the Crenshaw Animal Hospital in Torrance to seek medication for his dog, Butch. He obtained a copy of the bill, a canceled check and a confirmation note from the office manager.

He also obtained canceled checks dated Dec. 5, 1990, made out to Lucky supermarket in Torrance and to a Hickory Farms kiosk in Redondo Beach, where he had bought a fruitcake. Employees at Lucky and Hickory Farms wrote letters confirming the checks; so did Home Bank in Redondo Beach.

The piece de resistance was a letter from the Redondo Beach Police Department, reporting that on Dec. 5, 1990, Vale’s station wagon had its 1991 California registration--not a 1990 registration, as Denver parking officials claimed.

Vale bundled up the documentation and mailed it to Denver. In turn, parking officials conceded they were wrong and dropped the ticket.

“We really don’t need this much information,” said Kenneth Jaeger, Denver’s director of parking management. “Any one of these things probably would have cast enough question that we would not have pursued it.”

The Denver bureau is no longer using the form letter that required Vale to make his case in person.

“We’re trying to be a bit more friendly, to say that you don’t have to come in from Torrance, Calif., to protest a parking ticket,” Jaeger says.

Having won this battle of wills, Vale says that more than $16 was at stake.

“Everyone said, ‘Why don’t you just pay it?’ ” he recalls. “I said, ‘No, no, it’s a matter of principle.’ ”