Greetings, Durango! My family and I visited in June during a big summer road trip out West. We had a great meal at the Himalayan Kitchen, checked out the railroad museum and received a ridiculous parking ticket.
This last item, unfortunately, soured us on the town and I wanted to pass the word along in hopes that your Parking Division might reconsider the zealousness with which it enforces its parking code to support public transportation with collected revenues.
Consider this: We have a bike rack on the back of our minivan, like pretty much one out of every 10 cars on the road in Colorado. I found a spot behind another vehicle on Second Avenue with several empty spots behind me one morning, and put money in the meter. Rather than parking with the front of my van right on the bumper of the car in front of me, I left a little space, which meant part of my bike rack hung over into the space behind me. Good citizen, right? Well, upon returning I found a citation for parking “not wholly in marked space.”
Yes, I protested the ticket to no avail. (If the van is in the parking spot but a bike rack extends beyond, isn’t the “vehicle” wholly in the space? Is a bike rack a vehicle? Is it part of a vehicle?)
I write not to complain but to inform. After this bad experience, we won’t be back to Durango.
Peter Kempe
Christchurch, Va.
