Heres a good one, resident only parking by-law for Oak Bay; read the by-law first;
It shall be lawful for any person being a guest in a dwelling as aforesaid or engaged in transacting business with or performing work for or rendering services to any person residing in or being a guest as aforesaid, to park any vehicle and permit same to remain parked on the portion of such street described in Section 19(2)(a), provided, however,
(a)
that such person is actually present at the dwelling as a guest or is actually engaged in transacting business or performing work for or rendering a service to a person residing at the dwelling at the time the vehicle is parked; and
(b)
that such person has placed a note upon the dash of said vehicle which identifies the dwelling in which the person is either a guest or providing services with such note to be displayed in such a manner as to allow the same to be readily observed and read by persons outside the vehicle on which it is displayed
So we live up near UVic/Camosun and September parking enforcement is pretty heavy on residential streets to ensure no overflow from the campuses.
Just so you know
we do not have a parking issue on our street but the signs are there.
My Daughter's friend comes over 3 mornings a week and has breakfast with her, she places the notice on her dash that she's visiting our address and then they go to the gym or take the dog for a walk, come home do some studying together, have lunch and then she leaves and takes her car.
So last week she gets a parking ticket and printed on the ticket is an acknowledgement that there is a note on the dash but
no-one is home so she gets a ticket.
Upon hearing of this I took it upon myself to contact OB and find out whats going on. They put me in touch with the commissionaire and he says that there was no-one home and the by-law clearly states that the guest must be present.
I indicated that our guest went for a walk with my daughter and dog and he replied that 'therefore the guest was not present at your house so was therefore in contravention of the by-law"
Needless to say I went ballistic and told him that the website clearly indicates that guests should leave a note on the dash and nothing more and that was what we complied with. I suggested he was overstepping his authority and that we do not have to report our movements and personal activities to the Municipality and in fact this is most likely a contravention of our Charter Rights "Reasonable expectation of privacy".
He waived the ticket but 'warned' me that he would continue to write tickets to this car if it was on the street and no-one was home and I could keep calling and he would waive them BUT if she ever got pulled over by the police and they saw a trend of all those tickets that it may not go over so well for her.....
At this point I told him to take a long walk off a short French pier and hung up.
So folks, be warned, if you ever visit someone in Oak Bay and you do not leave a note on the dash and stay on the property a very small-minded busybody commissionaire may be waiting to pounce!!!