A couple in San Francisco has been fined $1,500 because they had the audacity to park their own vehicle in their own driveway.
In fact Judy and Ed Craine have been parking in the same spot in front of their home for the past 36 years, until the city decided to resurrect a decades-old law which resulted in the fines.
Ed Craine told ABC 7, “To all of a sudden to be told you can't use something that we could use for years, it's startling. Inexplicable.”
The decades-old section of the city code bans motor vehicles of all kinds from being parked on a carpad or setback in front of a house unless it's accompanied by a garage or cover.
Because the Craines driveway does not have a cover, they are no longer permitted to park their own car their.
Even though they have done so for almost four DECADES with zero problems.
The city recently levied them a fine of $1,542, with a threat of an additional $250-per-day fee if they didn't get the car off their carpad.
Daniel A. Sider, the chief of staff at the San Francisco Planning Department, said that the law was initially created for “aesthetic purposes.”
If the Craines were able to prove that the lot in front of their home (which was built in 1910) had been historically used for parking, they would consider waving the fines and remedying the situation.
The Craines first produced a photo of their daughter standing by the family car 34 years ago, but the city said the picture wasn’t old enough. Of course they did.
Luckily, they were able to find a photo on Google of the home from 1938 that shows a car, or even a horse-and-buggy, pulling into the driveway of the home.
Sider says the planning department was never shown this photo and will reconsider Craines' parking plight.
He said, “The 1938 aerial photo shown in ABC 7’s segment was never shared with the Department. The first we learned of it was during Friday’s broadcast. To that end, we’re reopening the matter and hope to have more clarity in the coming days."
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