Scarborough residents say relentless parking tickets with nowhere legal to park is out of hand

Residents on National Street in Scarborough's Cliffcrest area—near St. Clair Avenue East and Midland Avenue—say they are being relentlessly ticketed for parking outside their own homes, despite the street having no posted signage prohibiting parking and no resident permit program available.

One resident, Felicia, received eight tickets in nine weeks and says she's been cited even when she respects the three-hour parking limit that applies citywide when no signs are posted. "It was about 3 p.m. I went inside … I cooked some pasta and some ground turkey, and came back out and I had a ticket on my car," she said. Another neighbour, Sokol Dodaj, accumulated nearly $2,000 in fines over two months, including tickets he says were issued while he was unable to leave due to disability.

According to city bylaw, a three-hour parking limit applies on any street without posted restrictions. But residents say even adherence to that limit doesn't protect them from tickets, and the street is too narrow to accommodate legal street parking alternatives.

Dodaj and another neighbour recently submitted a petition to their local councillor, Parthi Kandavel, asking for changes that would allow residents to register their licence plates with parking enforcement "so they know who actually lives on the street and then they can go ahead and ticket the cars that don't actually reside here."

When asked about ticket volumes in the area, the Toronto Police Service said: "Ticket volumes are influenced by population density, street lay out, parking inventory, permit parking, posted regulations, and levels of non-compliance." Councillor Kandavel did not respond before publication.