With local governments cash-strapped during this depression, they are turning to traffic and parking tickets and fines to make up more of their revenue. The two young entrepreneurs in the video say they have saved their customers (and denied government- though hey don't mention that) about $12,000 so far. With millions of dollars in such fines at stake, I'm sure as their business expands and the idea catches on, some local Nazi somewhere will propose a "law" making such angel activity "illegal" (as has been done with "meter feeding"- there have actually been cases of people arrested for putting coins into strangers parking meters).
People live in fear of parking here says Parker in a quote from the story below. Yes, fear is the key the state always uses, both to convince people its unjust powers are necessary and to intimate people into compliance with its demands. Because with the state's illegitimate monopoly of "legal" force, if you don't comply you can be fined, jailed or even killed by its clown-costumed agents of death!
If the Ticket Angels don't live up to their promise, they'll pay your ticket. If you change your ways and never need a reminder to move your car, they'll give you a refund.
To founders Matthew Parker, 30, and Christopher Harati, 26, Santa Monica was the perfect place to launch the business.
"The signs are insanely complicated," Parker, a Michigan native, said. "Santa Monica is known all up and down the West Coast as being one of the worst places to park. People live in fear of parking here, so we're trying to alleviate that."
A notable example of Santa Monica's notoriously rigorous parking enforcement took place last month, when a TV reporter for KTLA news received several parking tickets during a live broadcast from a beach parking lot in town.
Ticket Angels got its start this year after Parker reminded Harati to move his car to avoid a ticket on the Santa Monica block where the two were neighbors. For Harati, originally from Irvine, it was a light bulb moment. Soon after, they set their sites on building the new company.
Each year, the city of Santa Monica takes in $13 million from parking violations, and Parker and Harati hope they can turn a large part of that amount into profits. And with cities throughout California operating under similar street sweeping rules as Santa Monica, they see the potential for a big expansion.
"If you take all of L.A., and all of the outlying areas, it's hundreds of millions of dollars" that's spent on parking tickets, Parker said.-Ticket Angels take aim at parking violations
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