Michelle Knight stepped out of her Nottingham Street home Monday morning to take her daughter to an appointment and got a shock. Her car wasn't where she parked it.
"I didn't know if it was stolen or what," said Knight, who used a taxi to get her daughter to her appointment.
Knight called police, who told her it had been towed.
It will cost her $135 to get the car out of the impound lot and a $35 ticket for parking on the street that night.
The city was doing street cleaning on Nottingham Street between Gordon Street and Glasgow Street and put up signs two days earlier indicating on-street parking would not be allowed on Monday.
"The sign is very small, people just didn't see it," Knight said. "They ticketed people from this morning until this afternoon. At least 20 people ticketed and towed.
"The fact that there's that many people that have been ticketed shows that it (the signs) not clear."
Knight is furious. She says the signs the city put up were inadequate and improperly placed (the one closest to her home was on the sidewalk). If she had seen the signs she said she certainly wouldn't have parked there.
She said several of her neighbours were out early Monday shocked to discover tickets, their car towed or about to be towed.
As Knight was talking to a reporter on Nottingham Street a man arrived looking for his car, which apparently had also been towed.
The man had parked on Nottingham around 9 a.m. to go downtown for a business appointment. He too never saw the signs informing drivers there was no parking on the street.
"It should be on the street, not on the sidewalk," the man said, gesturing to the portable sign that was on the sidewalk.
Other signs were attached to poles beside the road or placed closer to the road than the one at the Gordon Street end of the street.
"This was for street cleaning. The signs were put up on Friday by Public Works, and bylaw was notified at 3:10pm. (Friday)," said David Wiedrick, the city's manager of bylaw compliance, security and licensing.
"Officers are sent out to check the signs, and they were checked on Saturday and found to be compliant. From Gordon to Glasgow there were four no parking signs. Today, cars that interfered with the street cleaning (ignored the no parking signage) were towed.
Widerick said that "as per policy" the city gives 48 hours notice of change in parking regulations due to street cleaning in the spring and summer and leaf collection in the fall.
"This is also true when parking signs are changed. We allow 48 hrs for people to notice the change."
Knight didn't immediately have the $135 to get her car out of the impound and the man whose car was towed was trying to figure out how to get to the impound lot.
