Adams Morgan Parking Problem An Uphill Battle

"So then the police go off and do this on a midafternoon on a Tuesday, which was totally not what we meant."

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Forman and other neighborhood activists said they were astonished that police would go after residents rather than the visitors who cause the parking mess.

"Where's the common sense?" he asks. "Why would you spend your limited resources on this? Why would you use a law so antiquated that in the same section of regulations, there's a rule that you can't leave your horse untethered in the street?"

Police Inspector Marvin Lyons, tasked by Lanier to investigate the ticketing, says he has not finished his query, but "if it's a flat area, they should never have been written. I haven't seen this violation much, but any officer can write any ticket."

Still, it's hardly likely that several officers suddenly developed a desire to build respect for that particular bit of the code.

In fact, says Larry McCoy, commander of the 3rd Police District, what we had was a failure to communicate.

"There was a misdirection that came from one of our officials to go out and just enforce traffic to the max," he says. After residents asked for beefed-up enforcement, a supervisor decided that a blizzard of ticketing was in order. He sent out at least two officers in what McCoy now deems a fit of "overzealousness."

The supervisor and the officers have been counseled, and "this won't happen again," McCoy says. "If 80 percent of the cars on a block get a ticket, that's not right. That's not the message we want to send to the community."

The larger issue of parking in Adams Morgan is no closer to being solved. For many years, it has been clear that only a large municipal or private garage could provide any significant relief, but the city has done nothing to make that happen.

Meanwhile, Hekhuis received an e-mail yesterday telling her that police are getting her ticket canceled. "The roadway is a flat surface, therefore the [ticket] is invalid," the police document says.

And the residents of Adams Morgan are back to complaining, as one note on the online bulletin board puts it, about police officers "having an extended chicken fest at Popeyes."

Oh, and even before her ticket was voided, Hekhuis wanted to assure me that "I love living in Adams Morgan. It's always interesting."

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