2003-03-15 8:31 a.m.
Towing the Line
A crowd is huddled on the sidewalk, murmuring and shaking their heads. In the middle of Valencia Street: a black SUV and a tow truck. That sound you hear? The fragile social contract between the DPT and the citizens of San Francisco being shattered.
San Francisans and their evil parking enforcement department had an understanding about how parking in the Mission works on weekends. People could park their cars in the turn lane in the middle of Valencia and a couple of other streets. The DPT would not ticket or tow these cars. This made weekend drivers in the Mission happy and probably extended the lives of the DPT minions. (This is assuming that they haven't already signed a pact with the devil for eternal life, but for the length of this entry I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt.)
But here it was, a Friday night, and there was a City Tow truck making off with someone's SUV. Maybe they figured an SUV in the Mission was easy pickings and no one would object. Or maybe the recession means it's lean times for the DPT too -- after all, that same night I was able to find a spot at 18th and Guerrero, and da Mayor needs to pay for those Armani suits somehow.
Next time someone writes one of those whiny screeds on Craig's List about how San Francisco just isn't the same city as when they moved here way back in 1998, surely this will be on the list of complaints.