This post is about driveway parking. Its messed up. You're blocking people in and preventing normal life from continuing smoothly. Anything that prevents smooth is anti-L.A. and Belle Pose is strongly against anything Anti-L.A.
I first saw one form of driveway parking in Westwood, where people parked their cars so far down the driveway they were blocking the sidewalk and sometimes even into the street. They started cracking down on that by issuing $58 citations, but only after the City of Los Angeles was sued for violating the American Disabilities Act.
Silver Lake also had the same cars-on-the-sidewalks problem, and they endeavored to go the Westwood way: tickets.
What I have witnessed twice in my neighborhood is a different form of driveway parking. I like to call it DPE, or Drunken Parking Euphoria: A drunken driver gets all happy because they think they found a parking spot, but its really a driveway and their too drunk to notice.
It isn't unheard of to block a a driveway in these here parts. But it usually has to do with a running-in-and-out less than 5 minutes kind of thing. There isn't a lot of parking around here and sometimes you've just got to do that, block a hydrant or double-park. Most people are quick, and they certainly don't make it an overnight thing.
But there are always outliers. I don't remember many details about the first time I saw DPE, but it didn't seem as serious as what I saw today: When I left this morning (a weekday during rush hour) to go to work I laughed at the sight of a terrible parking job blocking a driveway. I laughed, but I also thought about how messed up it would be for the people parked in the blocked lot. I didn't linger on it because I knew it would be towed. It already had a ticket.
Fast forward to 7:00 p.m.: After circling the block 4 times because my regular lot was being repaved and painted, I found a spot then walked a length to my apartment, only to pass the same DPE! Still there! Still blocking the driveway! SAY WHAT?! The city didn't tow? The building's owners didn't tow? What went wrong?
There were some angry people. A couple of snarky notes were left on the car. A citation and some sort of letter from the city. The windshield was cracked and there was some sort of white crap smeared all over it.I'd like to dedicate this post to those stranded folks: May you be released soon!
