Car given parking ticket despite having wheels stolen

Adding insult to larceny, a car in Chicago that had all four of its wheels stolen overnight was given a parking ticket in the morning because it didn't get out of the way of a street cleaner. The 2011 GMC Denali was put up on cinder blocks after its wheels were stolen sometime between midnight and 7am on Thursday, according to the car owner's wife.



The owner parked the car at round 10:40pm on Wednesday evening near his home, according to his wife and police. It was the family's nanny who first noticed that the car wheels had been stolen. She told the car's owner, who then called the police to file a report. The policeman who helped them was "great," telling them all they had to do was put a note on the car with the police report number to avoid getting a ticket, the owner's wife said.

So the owner put the note up, making sure it was displayed prominently on the windshield. But that didn't stop a ticket writer from slapping a parking ticket directly over the note later on Thursday morning. "It's usually something you see in movies. It's crazy. I can't believe it happened," said the owner's wife, who declined to be named for fear of repercussions. "I'm disenchanted with city workers for not taking notice. We pay a lot of tax dollars so you think they'd take the time to read the note."



The ordeal was a huge inconvenience, the owner's wife said. Not only did her family have to deal with getting the car towed and repaired, but they also had to make sure the ticket is reversed, she said. Molly Poppe, spokeswoman for the city's department of transportation, said the ticket writer "had no way to confirm how long the car had been parked on the street or the police report number." "However, due to the circumstances of this issue and with knowledge that the wheels were stolen overnight, the city is voiding this ticket," she added.