Sometimes it’s folding chairs, other times it’s bright orange cones. People will even cordon off their prized real estate with caution tape. The most cavalier will just leave a shovel sticking up in a leftover patch of snow like the sword in the stone.
These efforts send a clear message: I shoveled it, I’m keeping it.
After getting about eight inches of snow and with continuing cold weather, parking spots have been hard to come by in Baltimore and many are taking matters into their own ands after they do the dirty work by saving their spot with items.
Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott had a simple message for residents about it on WBAL-TV.
“Don’t do it, if I see your chair it’s coming with me and going into the trash,” he said.
Parking has been especially contentious because the cold weather iced over the precipitation, turning it into what many have dubbed “snowcrete,” which takes more than a plastic snow shovel to dig into.
Kelly Hunter hired some neighborhood kids to clear her residential sidewalk and the street, and says staking a spot is fair game.
“I say if they shoveled the spot it should be their spot because they cleaned it out because that’s where their car was,” Hunter said.
Ned Sparrow owns a bookstore in the busy Station North neighborhood. He still remembers the last time he took a blocked off spot.
“There were garbage cans on the car when I woke up in the morning,” he said.
Scott Pennington, who says he is in his van all day, is done with parking politics. He’s dug out multiple cars over the last week, but says it’s just too much work to save a spot.
“I gave that up a few years ago because I had two incidents where I saved my seat, but somebody took it anyway, and it just felt like an unnecessary confrontation,” Pennington said. “Now I just shovel enough to get my vehicle out and don't clean it up too much, so that if somebody takes it, I only put so much work into it.”
During a snow storm, parking can verge on a moral crisis. What if the person taking a spot or reserving a spot has a broken leg or is eight and a half months pregnant, or just needs to make a quick trip to the store.
But much like the Wild West, it’s vigilante justice in the world of frozen city streets.
Emily Heleba waited all week to shovel her car out. Now half way through the job, she has no hopes she’ll actually be able to keep the spot.
“I've seen a lot of stories of people who do that, and then their neighbors come out and throw their chairs out and steal the spot anyway,” Heleba said.
So, until the snow melts, the parking wars will continue.
