Palo Alto Parking Policy Puts the Squeeze on Size

L.A. Times Archives

Aug. 10, 1999 12 AM PT

PATT MORRISON

Those unprintable noises coming from downtown Palo Alto? It’s drivers of sport utility vehicles and large cars finding under their windshield wipers the city’s first $30 parking tickets for parking in spaces designated for small cars.

In what passes for hot news in August, and what is always news in the car culture state, Palo Alto has begun enforcing an ordinance that means what it says on the pavement of fewer than 300 of the city’s 3,100 city spaces: This space for compact cars only.

With behemoth-mobiles measuring more than six feet wide or 15 feet long nudging into small spaces like Cinderella’s sisters cramming their fat toes into the glass slipper, the city took action.

“This came about,” said police agent Jim Coffman, “because of complaints from the public about their cars getting penned in, their doors getting dinged.”

Whining ranges from “I’ll never shop in Palo Alto again!” to “Small cars should get cited for parking in standard-car spots!”

Coffman is hardly surprised at controversy over California’s second-most-valued real estate: “Everybody drives, everybody parks.”

However, mindful of buying trends, the city’s two new parking garages, Coffman hears, will have all standard-sized spaces. Plenty of room for one council member’s classic wheels--a 1965 Dodge Dart.

Saving her bacon: Neither the children’s book “Charlotte’s Web” nor the movie “Babe”--both sympathetic to the sentience of farm animals--has put much of a dent in the nation’s pork-eating habits.

But one pig’s heroic deed has saved her from winding up between a couple of slices of rye bread: Spammy, the runt of the litter whose name presaged her lunch-meat destiny, has won a reprieve for herself by saving a bovine friend from a fire.

After firefighters put out a blaze in May in a Chico farm shed, owners Les and Wendy Morgan found the piglet squealing relentlessly until firefighters located her lifelong friend, Spot the calf.

Butte County Fire Battalion Chief Bill Redding said that from the looks of Spammy’s soot, blisters and marks, it seems the piglet used her backside to smash a hole in the burning shed wall to let Spot escape.

The family was grateful and all, but business is business, and the business is turning pigs into pork. When word got out that Spammy would be slaughtered as scheduled, dozens wrote to the Chico Enterprise Record demanding a reprieve.

Once the Spammy and Spot Trust Fund was cobbled together, the Morgans agreed to keep the friends united.

“This isn’t how we planned it,” Morgan said. “She was supposed to become somebody’s food, but fate will have its way. It’s kind of like ‘Charlotte’s Web,’ except here, a pig saves a cow.”

Face plate: Nancy Reagan got a load of grief for her White House china, but a different kind of plate she’s been wishing for seems to be creating few political ripples.

Speeding to a vote by the state Senate is a measure that would put former President Ronald Reagan’s face on a special state vanity license plate.

This is, according to sponsoring Assemblyman Tony Strickland (R-Thousand Oaks), the first time that the face of a real person, living or dead, has appeared on a full-fledged license plate.

It isn’t Mt. Rushmore, but thousands of rushing motorists would see Reagan’s classic cowboy-hatted portrait rendered in steel.

The measure passed the Assembly 66 to 6 and could be voted on by the full Senate a week or so after its Aug. 16 committee hearing. Proceeds from the $50 fee beyond the DMV’s cost would go to the Reagan presidential library.

Before the plate could go into production, at least 5,000 drivers would have to just say yes--more than even the Reagan White House china service could seat at dinner.

One-offs: A federal grand jury has indicted an already convicted Oakland bank robber who politely signs a smiley face and writes “thank you” on his notes demanding money. . . . A Lodi church will distribute free trigger locks to prevent teenage gun suicides. . . . In fixing an error about the site of the first McDonald’s, the New York Times Magazine misspelled the name of the correct town as “San Bernadino”--named of course for the famous St. Bernad.

EXIT LINE

“Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Never see the person, never meet the person, never speak with the person and then get upset when you get ripped off. You must be a bunch of morons.”

--A Web bulletin board message allegedly from a Sonoma County man accused of conning as many as 100 victims in a suspected $200,000 scam involving the sale of nonexistent Beanie Babies.

California Dateline appears every other Tuesday.

Bad Habits in Decline

Californians are apparently drinking and smoking less, according to state tax statistics. Estimated per capita consumption is shown below for 1997-98, the most recent year available, compared with 10 years earlier.

Item: Beer (gallons)

1987-88: 23.23

1997-98: 18.43

% change: -20.7

Item: Wine (gallons)

1987-88: 4.50

1997-98: 2.86

% change: -36.4

Item: Hard liquor (gallons)

1987-88: 1.75

1997-98: 1.15

% change: -34.3