Enforcement Operation Nets Fake Handicap Placards on Cars Filling West Pasadena Parking Spots

In an operation conducted on Thursday, November 10, the City of Pasadena’s Parking Enforcement Division confiscated four disabled-person placards and issued four citations for the unauthorized use of disabled placards between 6:45 and 9:20 a.m. around the area near North Arroyo Parkway and East Holly Street.

Transportation Director Fred Dock said the action was coordinated as a response to multiple complaints from business owners in the area about the habitual abuse of disabled placards on vehicles.

Using disabled placards and license plates give their owners a variety of benefits including the ability to park at parking meters without having to pay, and an exemption from time limits in the time-limited parking zones.

“Individuals who abuse the system take spaces from people with legitimate disabilities and reduce both meter revenue and parking availability,” Dock said in a report on the City Manager’s Weekly Newsletter. “The lack of turnover at spaces immediately adjacent to businesses can be extremely detrimental to those businesses.”

Two Parking Enforcement representatives and a Parking Division dispatcher were part of the team that conducted the operation where they observed and addressed the drivers of 19 vehicles who displayed disabled parking placards.

The dispatcher worked using California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) electronic access records to verify whether the placards were valid and assigned to a disabled person.