Regina cancels parking tickets for snowstorm victims

Buried in over 40cm of snow, trapped by unplowed roads; the past 48-hours have been frustrating for drivers across the province.

Capturing that frustration was a Facebook post from Josh Crosby, who posted a picture that was shared nearly 10,000 times showing a parking enforcement officer issuing a ticket on a vehicle left stranded.

Just hours after the post was made, the city responded.

“Any ticket that’s been issued between 6 a.m. Monday, and 6 a.m. Wednesday will be cancelled,” Mayor Michael Fougere announced this afternoon.

Fougere said that Crosby’s post certainly “played a part” in their decision to reverse the fines, but noted that he also received a number of phone calls complaining about the tickets.

The Facebook post even got the attention of ward 6 councilor Joel Murray, who reached out to Crosby personally.

“I was pretty happy to see his response and that he wanted to rectify the situation,” Crosby said.

According to Crosby, Murray inquired who was ticketed, and about how they could rectify the situation.

Part of rectifying it means making sure similar incidents don’t happen in the future; something the city is already working on. Fougere says they will revise their policies to make exceptions for future extraordinary circumstances or weather events.

Tickets issued in the city’s snow routes will not be cancelled as drivers had advanced notice.

They estimate just 15 snow route tickets were issued.

“People are getting the message and this is a test case, we wanted to see if snow routes could be expanded to other parts of the city, so compliance is important and our advertising of this is critical to make sure when they understand those come into effect,” adds Fougere.