A rash of parking tickets handed out overnight Wednesday has a Saskatoon business owner feeling frustrated.

Michael Groulx runs a construction company in Saskatoon. You can find him out and about managing one of his many properties.

While parking tickets usually come as no surprise, Groulx was issued three tickets at 2:10 a.m., 2:12 a.m., and 2:13 a.m.

“I woke up to find three tickets stuck to the front of my trailer. I parked the last trailer at 9 at night,” he told CTV News on Thursday.

Groulx owns three company trailers, which he says he usually parks on his driveway each night.

Last month, his driveway and sidewalk were getting repaved. He says the city told him not to park there for at least a week.

In the meantime, he parked his trailers on the street.

The city bylaw regarding residential street parking is extensive:

  • A person shall not park a vehicle, or a vehicle connected to a trailer, longer than six metres on a street that has angle parking or in any metered parking area, in any ticket controlled zone, or in any pay station zone.
  • A person shall not park for more than one hour at any time a vehicle, or vehicle connected to a trailer, which has an overall length of more than 6 metres on a street in any residential district.
  • An owner or operator of a recreational vehicle shall not park the recreational vehicle on a residential street in the City for more than 36 hours

Groulx was fined for the violation of an unattached trailer.

Coun. Darren Hill said the practice of overnight parking tickets looks like a "money-grab."

Even if the tickets are valid, the practice is inconsistent, he said.

“This is the first I’ve ever heard of that late night commissionaire or parking enforcement unit actually going out and looking for infractions in residential neighborhoods,” Hill said.

He says the practice is inconsistent and enforcement is typically complaint-driven, which means a ticket is issued after someone complains.

“It may be as simple as a miscommunication with the parking branch, or an overzealous person given a directive thinking we need to address this concern and this is the way to do it,” he said.

Hill plans on taking a deeper look into the issue. He says he’s requested numbers of how many similar tickets have been issued since Jan. 1, the area of the fines, and which commissionaire signed them.