My wife wanted me to buy specialty food. Beef Chuck at the butcher. Mexican oregano and tortillas. I shopped local of course. The meat cost an arm and a leg. It’s a luxury. Over at Toronto Latino, all the legal parking spots were taken. I was only going to be 5 minutes, so I parked just ahead of those, taking up a tiny space of a long stretch of “No Stopping” on Eglinton to Dufferin. When I got back, I couldn’t believe it.
A $120 parking ticket! What I bought at that local shop cost $32. My local shopping ended up costing me over $200. This comes at a time when I was thinking long and hard about buying new winter boots because I have none. A decent pair cost about the same as this bill.
The big fine also comes at a time when the City of Toronto has a “Love Local” campaign. They’ve invested in big street signs with a small heart, and a big word “Local”. The City’s says its local campaign is “A citywide call to action that encourages Torontonians to support locally-owned businesses, ensuring that economic benefits remain within the community.”
But how is ticketing for this amount of money encouraging me to support local businesses?
I got a big fine, not a small one. For parking in front of local stores on Eglinton where I bought local products. I live nearby and I have my own store at Eglinton and Dufferin. I am fully invested in local. I spend local. I am local.
But the City is acting completely loco. Ticket. Ticket. Ticket. It’s the City’s sledgehammer. Doesn’t feel like love at all. And for all the City’s words about supporting local, all I know is that their ticket made it very, very expensive to buy local.
And I have to scratch off those winter boots from my list.
No sympathy here. The risk of getting of ticket was totally your responsibility. Still buy local. Take transit.