While city officials had planned to resume ticketing on July 6 for parking violations on street sweeping days and in other circumstances that had been relaxed since the coronavirus pandemic began, the Los Angeles City Council voted 13-1 yesterday to extend the relaxation through at least August 1. (Parking meter violations will still be ticketed, however, as they have been all along.)
In the last couple of weeks, with both COVID-19 case counts and infection rates surging, business re-openings have slowed or been reversed (in the case of bars, restaurants’ interior dining rooms, etc.), leaving more people stuck at home, and parking in many residential areas still scarce.
City Council Member Mitch O’Farrell, who introduced the motion to continue the relaxed parking rules, was quoted in the LA Times yesterday, saying “More people are at home now than ever…We don’t even know what the next day, two, three, four, five days are going to bring, much less what will happen next week, when parking enforcement [was due to resume] its regular functions.”
The relaxation continuation also includes parking in rush-hour zones and anti-gridlock zones, as well as ticketing for expired vehicle registration.
