San Francisco Paints ‘No Parking’ Zone Around Parked Car and Tickets It

Parking in San Francisco can feel like a full-time sport for some of its citizens. It can be so crazy that you may be committing a parking violation and not even know it. That was the case for one man who is fighting a ticket for parking in a red zone. The weird thing is, it was repainted red while his car was already parked there. “Anytime it’s open I’ve been parking there for 25 years.”

Jeff Jolly and his wife, Desiree have lived in their Russian Hill neighborhood for years and have never had any issues like this before.

“We came out and we were walking up from the store, and I noticed the ticket on my car,” says Desiree. Looking closer was a $180 fine for parking in a red zone, next to a curb with a fresh coat of red paint.

“The red stripe is there, where it wasn’t before, and they had the nerve to just to go around my tire,” says Desiree while pointing out an unfinished patch on the curb.

Jeff, who is also a painter, found this detail very amusing. “I saw that and I even have painter friends who say what a bad job that was. They missed a spot.”

Older images of the curb pulled from Google Maps showed the same curb with very faded, barely visable red paint.

After contesting the ticket, the SFMTA (San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency) tells the couple that it is up to the citation’s clerk to dismiss the ticket or not.