Parking ticket for parking in a private lot reserved for customers of X, Y, and Z businesses

Question

In BC, a parking ticket has been issued to a man who has been a previous customer within the last two months of one of the three businesses listed that this lot is reserved for.

Before this, he decides to go for dinner across the street and parks in this parking lot reserved for X, Y, and Z businesses. He sees a sign saying reserved for customers of these businesses, and figures he'll be alright considering he's a frequent customer of X business, but not today. Y business is a vet who the man brings his dog to every few months for health checkups. He's certainly a continuing customer of theirs as well. Anyways, he walks across the street to the restaurant for dinner. After returning to his vehicle he finds this ticket showing a photo of his vehicle with text below it saying "For customers only. Walked off towards restaurant."

Is this ticket fightable? What is the legal definition of a customer? What is the time frame attached to the term "customer"? Is this a legal contract since there is no consideration?

Answer 1

I don't know about BC, but I would be surprised if it were that much different from:

germany

Public grounds can be restricted for parking by the respective authority by putting up official traffic signs, private grounds can be marked as allowed to park in, if there are conditions, they must be clearly spelled out (or signalled through well known traffic signs). Parking in such a space is counted as agreement to the visible contract.

The conditions of this contract have to be fulfilled while parking. So for example:

• If you park on a space designated for parents with small children, you have to have your small child with you. If the child is actually in school at the time you parked there, or went of to college last year, you are in violation.

• If you park in a spot for disabled people, you need to have a disability now. I broke my leg two years ago, but it's fine now is not a disability. Hopping along on crutches right now is.

• If you park in a spot designated as "for customers", you need to be a customer while you park there. It does not matter if you had a customer relationship earlier, the only thing that matters is whether you are a customer while you park. You don't need to buy something for it. You can go into the store, try on a few shoes and if none fit, you can walk out. But you were a customer. If you bought a pair of shoes last week and just park there because it is closest to the bakery you want to go to, that is a violation.

So if you parked in a lot "reserved for customers of X,Y,Z" and then went somewhere else, you are in violation. Previous relationships to X, Y, Z do not matter. You are not an active customer of any of them.

It is a little bit of a grey zone if you go to X, go to store A, then buy something from Z and return to your car. Technically, you were not allowed to park there in the time you were going to, shopping in and coming from A. But nobody is going to track you minute by minute. Blatantly parking and going off in another direction though is a clear violation.

Answer 2

Only governments can authorise fines

australia

A fine is a penalty and only governments can impose punitive sanctions. It would not be unlawful for a law to authorise the charging of fines by private individuals but (AFAIK), it has not been done in any Australian jurisdiction for parking, although toll road operators can recover statutory costs for non payment of tolls.

It is not unknown for private parking lots to be turned over in whole or in part for public parking. In such cases the local government can impose fines because, despite the underlying ownership, it’s public parking.

Breach of contract

The only basis for which a private car park operator can legitimately recover damages for “illegal” parking is through a breach of contract claim.

However, that would require them to establish that there was a contract. If you pass through a clearly defined entrance such as a boom gate with clearly displayed terms and conditions, the courts have found that there is a contract unless you proceed with all reasonable speed to the exit, especially if you pay for the parking. On the other hand, if the lot has no such clear distinction and/or there are no such terms, there isn’t a contract.

If there is a contract and you breached its terms, then the lot operator can recover damages, not fines. That is they are entitled to recover what they lost through your breach. If they charge for parking (say $5 for 1 hour) and you overstay by 30 minutes, the damages are $2.50 plus the reasonable administrative costs of recovering that. If there is no charge, then they would have to show that by parking there you definitely caused someone else to not park there and show how that caused them a definite loss.

A contract can define “liquidated damages” instead of actual damages but they must be a genuine pre-estimate of the loss the breach will cause. That is, in line with the fee charged for parking.

That said, it’s a common scam and there are several dodgy operators that make a lot of money thereby.