[softfalcon]

This literally happened to my neighbour when a film crew came into our neighbourhood.

My neighbour was out of town, off vacationing with their family. They had a large family with several kids, so they had a good 2 or 3 cars parked around the front of their home.

The film crew had mandated that all cars needed to be cleared from the set. So absolutely no cars on the street. They went around asking people to move all their cars down to the school parking lot a couple blocks away. My neighbours weren't home to hear this or even be notified.

The set director (I think that must be who they were cause they yelled a lot at everyone) was cursing at my neighbour's home, waving hands angrily, and called a tow truck to move all of the neighbour's cars. A person came to ask if we knew where they were or had their contact number. We told them they were out of town.

They did not move the cars back. School re-opened after the long weekend, neighbour got fined for parking tickets down at the school. Came back home to missing vehicles, called the cops, freaked out, eventually found their cars down at the school, had to pay over $500 in parking fines, one of their cars had even been towed down to the impound lot for improper parking on a private space.

It was a gigantic mess. Doubt the film crew cares, they were long gone and probably not even in the country by the time my neighbour was capable of filing a grievance with them.

[JackFr]

In NY the film crews out up emergency no parking signs 2-3 days in advance which 1) are issued by the police; 2) describe the time and date of the shooting and name of the production; 3) list the name of a production assistant in charge and a cell phone number. Seems like a pretty good compromise.

[etskinner]

How does that fix the issue where someone is on a week-long vacation? Seems like a letter a few weeks in advance is they least they could do.

[jffry]

In many large cities, there's shorter-than-a-week minimum notices for street closures. For example in DC, no-parking permits have to be posted at least 72 hours in advance.

If you are going out of town for longer than that amount of time, you either need to find somewhere you can pay to park your car, or you need to get a neighbor or friend to check in on it periodically and move it if there's a sign.

This responsibility is the only cost of using public space to store your car, aside from a nominal annual vehicle registration fee. Seems fair to me.

[mynameisvlad]

Most big cities have the shorter notice periods because they also generally have maximum parking time limits. In Seattle, for instance, you have to move your car every 72 hours if you're parked on the street.

Is it enforced? No. But technically, it's there.

[JackFr]

> Is it enforced? No. But technically, it's there.

Very much enforced in NYC - where they do around $600 million a year in parking tickets.

[mynameisvlad]

I would argue that most of those 600 million are not "parked for too long in one place", which is what I said is not enforced.

The vast majority of them are likely the ones that can be verified on the spot -- things like being parked in a no parking zone (whether street cleaning or regular), expired or hasn't paid parking, etc.

[humanistbot]

> Is it enforced? No. But technically, it's there.

In California we have the same law, and it is certainly enforced, usually at the behest of nosy neighbors who have nothing else to do.

[mynameisvlad]

It's probably the same here -- it's enforced extremely selectively and only because they're tired of getting the complaint for the dozenth time.

To verify, they usually have to mark your tires to check you haven't moved the car in the 72 hours (you could've just parked in the same place), so it usually requires two outcalls to even issue a ticket. That's a lot of work when you're anywhere outside of the downtown core where that initial call could be done as part of other work.

[btilly]

The "improper parking on a private space" example in the story a few posts up strongly suggests that the car was parked in their own driveway. And yet the car was towed and impounded.

Even in the event of a street closure, I expect that a car parked on my own driveway is fine. And since I'm not using public space to store it, your "public space to store your car" comment is not applicable.

[Bilal_io]

The filming crew towed the cars to a school's parking lot. When the school opened the cars were towed and impounded.

[btilly]

Thanks for the correction.

I understand how that happened, but wow. I hope that the filming crew was forced to pay for this.

A lot of cities require that the city tows the car, rather than the filming crew. Exactly to avoid this kind of problem.

[softfalcon]

This is correct. My neighbour had some of their cars parked in their driveway on their own property.

Film crew moved all of their cars off of their own property down to the school.

Once school opened up, they were now “improperly parked” (by the film crew) and fines were issued and one of the cars was impounded.

[austhrow743]

I took it to mean it was improperly parked at the school.

[jenny91]

In NYC you generally have to move your car twice a week due to street cleaning. No way you could park for weeks without issue.

[jjulius]

That is also commonplace.