More than 1,700 vehicles towed over multiple unpaid parking tickets: city

A parking ticket is seen in Winnipeg in an undated image. (CTV News Winnipeg)

More than 1,700 vehicles in Winnipeg have been towed over multiple parking tickets, the majority of which remain unpaid.

In March 2024, the city introduced a new policy to tow and impound vehicles with three or more unpaid parking tickets if they were caught committing another parking offence.

That policy was updated this summer, allowing a tow for vehicles with two or more tickets.

At the time, the city blamed a small number of vehicle owners for the vast majority of outstanding parking tickets. New data from the city seems to back that claim up.

Since March 2024, the city told CTV News it had conducted 1,741 tows associated with accounts that—in total—have been slapped with 53,810 parking tickets.

On average, that equals more than 30 tickets per driver. Though, it could be even higher, as the city notes in its policy there is no limit on how many times a vehicle can be towed.

While 17,249 of those tickets have been paid, the city said 36,561 remain unpaid.

Under the policy, drivers whose vehicles have been towed don’t need to pay the ticket to get it back. They do, however, have to pay the towing fee, storage fees and any other administration fees.