Snowstorm parking ticket blitz: City of Ottawa issues thousands of fines as rules change abruptly

Daytime parking ban fines net city $250K Drivers angry about daytime parking ban, as bylaw hands out $75 fines during Friday snowfall. CTV's Stefan Keyes reports.

OTTAWA — The City of Ottawa’s controversial decision to impose a winter daytime parking ban during snowstorms, could be a windfall for the city.

City by-law officers issued just under 3400 tickets for vehicles parked on the streets during the new daytime winter parking ban.  At $75 dollars for each ticket, that’s more than $250,000 worth of revenue for the city, during just a few hours of Friday’s storm.

CTV Ottawa spoke with several frustrated drivers in the Byward Market  who were caught Friday.

But it appears the crackdown was widespread in all parts of the city.

Summer Baird from Hintonburg Public House says her customers were ticketed aggressively, and other patrons heard about it and started cancelling reservations Friday afternoon.

A group of volunteers for “Do it For Daron”, a youth mental health foundation, found all their cars ticketed as the left the Wellington Diner on Richmond Road Friday, a street that normally allows free on street parking for 90 minutes.

“They were all sad and annoyed,” said Jeffrey Frost, owner of the Wellington Diner.

Jeff Leiper the city councillor for the area says he received dozens of emails and complaints about the new practice. He said the idea of daytime parking bans is to help city crews clear snow more quickly.

Leiper says because the policy is new, there could have been a more “nuanced” way of letting people know what was happening, rather than issuing thousands of parking tickets.