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Within Los Angeles, only the city has the authority to collect on tickets. And they're not going to write them on a private lot, with one federally mandated exception. Bruce Gillman, the spokesman for the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, told me that "the only way [the Department of Transportation] can go and give a ticket on a private lot is if someone is illegally parked in a handicapped space or has made a fraudulent handicapped sign." Handicapped parking is mandated by the American with Disabilities Act, and the government can enforce its availability. Besides that, the city doesn't get involved in what amounts to a private dispute.Even four years after the Attorney General ruled that these tickets are basically unenforceable requests for money, private institutions continue to write them. And why not? Anybody who pays is literally just giving them free cash.Private institutions continue to write the fraudulent tickets. And why not? Anybody who pays is literally just giving them free cash.
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I was interested in how the rest of the for-profit ticketing industry worked, so I found that out-of-state company up the chain. It was a Denver-based company called Clancy Systems International, which sells everything you would need to write your own tickets and process them: hand-helds, printers, Android smartphones, and tablets to help run the operation. They also offer software that direct parking lot owners how to initiate collections.There is no reason a person couldn't set up an account, write their friend a ticket for "being a total dick," and then when they don't pay, use Clancy's software to sic a collection agency on them.
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