Pity the poor parking meter. The ubiquitous money-collecting device takes our quarters, dutifully measures time and blinks “expired” to warn of impending tickets. Is it the meters’ fault that, after the city sold them to a private company for $1.2 billion, parking rates skyrocketed? Of course not.
But that hasn’t stopped vandals from venting their frustrations on the beleaguered machines. Last month, a man was taken into police custody after he repeatedly pounded a meter with a concrete bock. Other meters have been wrapped with tape, doused with paint, jammed with pennies, sabotaged with super glue, filled with expanding foam and, in one case, set on fire.
The city doesn’t track the issue. But LAZ Parking — the subcontractor that took over meter maintenance in February — says incidents are up. Company officials declined to elaborate because, as LAZ Chief Operating Officer Mike Kuziak put it, they don’t want to give people “any ideas.”
“Call it civil disobedience,” said Mike, a local blogger who runs theexpiredmeter.com and asked that his last name be withheld because his site explains how to beat tickets. “It seems to be a concerted effort to strike back in a really wired way. It’s crazy.”
It’s also illegal. Tampering with a meter, according to city code, carries a fine of up to $500 per offense.