Detroit pizza man paints street to save people from getting parking tickets
Sacco said it's confusing because parking enforcers consider the street space reserved for as many as four vehicles.
A Detroit pizzeria owner upset over people getting $150 tickets for unwittingly parking in a handicap zone got a bucket of blue paint and marked the street himself.
“People come to Detroit, try to support our city and walk away with a $150 ticket, and they feel like they were tricked into it and they kind of were tricked into it,” said Tony Sacco, co-owner of Mootz Pizzeria and Bar.
The last straw: A woman and her children getting ice cream found a ticket on their car.
"I was talking to my buddy sitting with me and I said, ‘We’re going to go buy some blue paint.’ And we did,” Sacco told WDIV-TV.
There is a single sign along the curb indicating that parking is reserved for drivers with a handicap tag. But Sacco said it's confusing because parking enforcers consider the street space reserved for as many as four vehicles.
“I mentioned it to the people writing the tickets. I said, ‘People don’t understand this is handicapped,’ and they said, ‘That’s their problem. They should read the sign,'" Sacco said. "That was the attitude.”
There was no immediate comment from the city Wednesday.
Now if anyone illegally parks on the blue patch of street and gets a ticket, “they deserve it,” Sacco said.
