Park Slope Man Challenges Parking Ticket on Grounds of Bad Grammar

April 9, 2012 Brooklyn Eagle Staff
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A Park Slope chiropractor is fighting a parking ticket because he thinks the city is misinterpreting the laws—of proper grammar.
 
The New York Times reports that Mark Vincent, 48, is considering making a third appeal on a parking ticket he received last October, when, while attempting to comply with alternate-side parking rules in the Slope, he parked his car under a sign that read “No Standing April to October.”
 
After some careful reflection, Vincent had decided that the sign meant that there was no parking in that spot up until the start of October, which would mean of course that the day of his alleged violation, Oct. 2, was copacetic. So he parked his car with what he felt to be Webster’s blessing.
 
Two days later it was locked up in a back lot of the Brooklyn Navy Yard bearing the added weight of a $115 parking ticket and a $225 release fee, according to theTimes.
 
Since then, Vincent has made two appeals and both of them have been denied, despite his assertion to the Times that, “Every accepted printed dictionary supports my grammatical interpretation of the parking sign. To: Up to but not including. Through: To and including.” Seeming to further validate his case, the contested sign has now been replaced by a less ambiguous one that reads, “No Standing April 1-Sept. 30.”
 
Vincent's last option is to pay $305 to file an appeal with the State Supreme Court and hope for a judge who isn’t afraid to split hairs. If his appeal were successful, the filing fee would be refunded.
 
“My dream is that one of these people will have a conversation with me,” Vincent told the Times.
 
An Eagle copy editor who was consulted on the issue sided with Vincent and provided an illustrative example: “When you work a 9 to 5, do you work until 5:59?” In one reporter’s case, the answer is yes.
 

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