Having parked in downtown Walnut Creek for many years without getting a ticket or citation, it was finally my turn to get burned last year. At the Broadway Pointe parking garage, a free, private garage in downtown Walnut Creek managed by Park Smart / Regional Parking, there are two types of signs indicating how long one may park. One is the typical 3-Hour Limit sign. The other is a “3 hour Parking Maximum” sign. Whenever I looked at this sign I wondered what the point was. After all, if the standard 3-hour limit sign is there, then obviously the maximum is three hours, right?
One day last year, I parked in the morning to work out at Orangetheory on Locust St. and get a bowl of miso ramen at Ramen Hiroshi. In the evening, I headed back to downtown Walnut Creek for a rare night out with my wife and ended up having a great meal at Va de Vi. Unfortunately for me, I decided to park at the Broadway Pointe parking garage. As we returned to the car that evening, I saw the dreaded parking citation. I wrote back to Park Smart / Regional Parking pointing out that these were completely separate trips with several hours in-between when I was not there. The parking spots were also different. A few weeks later I heard back about the denial:
The License Plate Recognition Vehicle scanned your vehicle on two separate visits; the daily maximum of 3 hours was exceeded: no receipts from Braodwav Pointe merchants were provided for “consideration.”
