Montreal man ticketed minutes after parking spot replaced by bus stop

A Montreal resident in NDG is upset after he received an $186 ticket after a bus stop sign was installed on his front lawn.

A Montreal man is fighting a parking ticket he says was given minutes after crews set up a bus stop, apparently without warning.

Lino Monteleone says early in the morning of April 1, his daughter showed him a ticket she’d received on her car parked overnight on the street in front of their home in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighbourhood.

It wasn’t an April Fools’ joke, but Monteleone says there was a lot of confusion.

“The night before, there was parking on the street,” he said.

After looking at their doorbell camera video, the family says Société de transport de Montréal (STM) workers put up the new bus stop sign on their front lawn shortly before 8 a.m.

They say the video then shows a city parking agent ticketing the vehicle at 8:05 a.m.

Monteleone says he called 311, but was told they can’t cancel a ticket that was already issued, so he would have to contest the fine.

“Now, I got to waste my time to go contest the ticket, and if they refuse, I actually got to go to court and spend four or five hours in a courtroom to fight a ticket, which is completely, completely wrong,” he said.

Monteleone says the new sign should have been flagged well before it went into effect.

The STM tells CTV News that the sign was put up due to construction on Sherbrooke Street West.

The agency says they do not inform area residents of the installation or relocation of a bus stop, adding that there are approximately 10,000 bus stops in the City of Montreal, so drivers should be vigilant.

Lawyer Thierry Rassam, president of S.O.S. Tickets, says Monteleone has a good case to contest the fine.

“There’s nothing he (Monteleone) could have done to prevent this,” he said. “I mean, you’re not going to go and check every five minutes to see if they’re changing signage and to move your car.”

Monteleone confirmed he plans to contest the ticket.

He adds that since the sign went up, he hasn’t seen any buses on his street.