A City Charged This Woman More Than $100,000 for Parking on Her Own Property

Sandy Martinez says that fine, along with another $63,500 for driveway cracks and a downed fence, violates Florida's constitution.

JACOB SULLUM | 2.25.2021 4:25 PM

Sandy Martinez has a car. So do her two adult children and her sister. When all four cars were parked at Martinez's home in Lantana, Florida, two of them sometimes extended slightly beyond the driveway, which is flanked by her lawn and a walkway. Because that violation of Lantana's municipal code is punishable by a fine of $250 per day, the city is demanding more than $100,000 from her, plus another $63,500 for cracks in the driveway and a fence that was blown over in a storm . . . Martinez's street has no curbs and is not wide enough to accommodate parked cars. She and her relatives therefore could not legally or safely park on the street, leaving the driveway as the only option. But as the complaint notes, "parking on one's own front yard space, even a tiny bit, is illegal in Lantana."

And then there was the fence. Because it was downed by a major storm, the repair was covered by insurance. But the claim took quite a while to process, and meanwhile Martinez could not afford to fix the fence. The delay resulted in $125 daily fines for 379 days, totaling $47,375—"several times the cost of the repair and substantially more than the cost of a completely new fence."

All told, Martinez is on the hook for $165,250, plus interest. Although she "is now fully in compliance and has not had any new cases opened against her," the lawsuit says, the only way she could begin to cover that debt would be selling her home. But even that option is not feasible, because she "would never realize nearly enough profit from the sale of the Home to pay both her mortgage and the City's fines."

full article: Reason dot com

You get what you allow.

Why, in all this time and before it did the people not get together and throw out the people who put these rules through?

Why do they not NOW get together and throw them, the fines and the rules out?

Or is it simply easier to complain.

379 DAYS with a wrecked fence. Why didn't the owners just walk out the day after the storm and tear it completely out and get rid of it? Why did they leave it for 379 days? When they were informed about the fines for the cars , why did they not just park the cars someplace else or make more room in the yard? There seems to be a lot left out of the story.

These type stories are like clickbait. Only telling part of the facts or deliberately leaving stuff out.

How hard is it to figure out that you can not park on your driveway, blocking the sidewalk and extending into the road?

After the 10th or so parking ticket, you would think they would figure out that they needed to find a better way to park the cars. I very much doubt that the city ignored the problem for an entire year and then sprung the huge fine without warning.

The fence, yeah, I would have removed it if it wasn't repairable. After the insurance company has photos, the wreckage doesn't need to remain there all year.

I'm not feeling the outrage for the poor victimized scofflaw.

Exactly -- there is clearly more to this and this article is biased to make it look one way only.

Note that a $100,000 parking fine -- with a max of $250/day -- means that she has 400+ days of parking fines too.