Like finding good real estate, getting or avoiding a Denver parking ticket can be all about location, location, location.
The airport and areas surrounding the Children’s Museum, the Denver Department of Human Services, Larimer Square and Children’s Hospital were the most ticketed in the city during 2003 and 2004, a Denver Post analysis of parking violations shows.
The entire downtown retail area, city hall, and East Third and Detroit Street in Cherry Creek are also huge cash cows for the city.
Ticketing is big business for Denver, generating nearly $114 million in charges over the past five years.
But nearly 30 percent hasn’t been collected, even though parking enforcers are quick to unleash the notorious “Denver Boot” – a device that immobilizes cars after it is clamped onto the tire of a ticket dodger.
As a result, Denver city officials are poised to crack down on scofflaws, including turning them in to credit scoring agencies.
“We’re going to get more aggressive. We’re going to report people to the credit bureau and turn their names over to law firms that specialize in collections,” said Anderson Moore, director of the city’s parking management agency. The new enforcement will go into effect in about four months.
Parking management says it doesn’t double up in certain areas to issue more tickets, and reminds drivers that the city isn’t the only one dishing out citations. DIA, the Denver Police Department, and the Department of Human Services also have their own people writing tickets.
Though more than 18,000 tickets were issued in 2003 and 2004 around DIA, the number has actually decreased over the past two years, said Denver police Sgt. Tim Van Portfliet.
Until two years ago, officers cruised the airport parking garage looking for expired license tags so they could leave travelers a welcome-home gift tucked in the door. Then the city attorney prohibited police from doing so because the cars weren’t on public roadways.
“Most of the tickets (now) are strictly for illegally staying curbside or leaving their cars at the curb,” said Van Portfliet, noting that police are quicker to enforce those laws after the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
Denver’s parking ticket database shows that the little white slips in the yellow envelopes are one of the city’s great equalizers, issued as frequently to the powerful as the powerless.
Even Mayor John Hickenlooper, who ran a campaign ad two years ago in which he stared down a ticket writer, has returned to his car to find a ticket shoved beneath his windshield wiper.
Over the two years, Hickenlooper, known as the parking mayor, collected 13 tickets, including four for license-plate expirations. That’s one fewer than his chief of staff, Michael Bennet.
“It doesn’t matter who you are,” said Patty Weiss, spokeswoman for parking management. “If you have a violation, you’re going to get a ticket.”
Weiss knows what she’s talking about. She got two.
It will come as no surprise to most Denverites – observed daily cursing parking enforcers who seem to whip out a ticket the minute the meter reads zero – that the leading ticket category was meter violations. A total of 470,190 tickets for that infraction were issued over the two-year period.
Nearly 75,500 tickets were issued to cars sitting in a “no parking any time” or a tow-away zone. Nearly 231,000 tickets were for invalid or expired license plates. About 15,722 tickets were issued for those parked on private property and 7,212 tickets were for illegally parking in a handicapped spot.
The city’s top 20 ticket dodgers owe anywhere from $1,930 to $2,900. One Aurora woman has 110 open tickets. A Denver woman with 53 open tickets had her car towed three years ago, and she had the amount reduced through a magistrate. Even so, she still has not paid the lower amount of $2,460. A man with Missouri plates was in town long enough to rack up 54 tickets. He, too, had his fines reduced but has still not paid the $2,050.
But by far the city’s most impressive offenders are the overnight delivery companies. UPS and FedEx trucks have racked up thousands of tickets in Denver.
Both companies are on a “multi-owner plan” whereby they receive a ticket report each month and pay in full, according to parking management.
“We don’t like getting tickets, but sometimes it’s the reality of doing business in cities,” said Fed Ex spokesman Jim McCluskey.
Parking officials admit that the bulk of the outstanding $34 million in parking fines will probably never be collected. People move or die, and sometimes the license-plate numbers aren’t written down correctly, Moore said.
Part of the tracking problem has been chalked up to an antiquated computer system, which is being replaced.
“We do better in collecting fines than almost any city that doesn’t have a registration-hold policy,” Moore said.
Unlike many states, Colorado does not put a hold on vehicle registration until a person has paid his or her tickets.
New rules, Moore said, will most likely include another late charge for meter violations. Now a ticket is $20 if paid in 20 days. After that, it doubles. Moore said that in the future, a scofflaw might receive another $20 late fee after 60 days.
Computer assisted reporting editor Jeffrey A. Roberts contributed to this report.
Staff writer Karen Crummy can be reached at 303-820-1594 or kcrummy@denverpost.com.