LV may offer chance to violators

The average parking violation in Las Vegas sets a driver back $50, which makes the current $9.8 million in unpaid tickets and fines fairly eye-popping.

The city isn't likely to see most of that money but hopes to at least get a slice of it with a parking ticket amnesty that's set to be adopted today by the Las Vegas City Council.

The moratorium would allow people to pay only the original fine to clear a parking ticket. Amnesty would be offered during two time periods: July 29 to 31 and Aug. 5 to 7.

"We've never done this before, so we're not sure how it will go," said Mark Vincent, the city's finance director.

"We carry these things on our books. We have years and years and years of these things that we might never collect."

He estimated that about $500,000 of the backlog could be cleared during the amnesty period. Because late fees and other penalties would be waived, the city would actually collect about $175,000.

The $9.8 million figure "sounds more dramatic than it really is," Vincent added, since it represents the total of fines and penalties owed. The amount paid when someone settles a late ticket is usually less than the official amount.

Of the total $9.8 million in unpaid parking tickets and fines, about $1 million is owed by out-of-state drivers. The city uses a collection agency to go after those. Another $2.8 million represents cars that aren't registered, so it's difficult to find out who the owner is.

The people most likely to take advantage of parking ticket amnesty are those with tickets less than a year old, Vincent said, which represents about $3 million.

A simple parking ticket carries a $20 fine. Others are more expensive: a fire lane violation can cost as much as $250, as does parking in a handicapped spot without a permit. With late fees, the amount of a ticket can double or triple.

Current information on the worst parking offenders was not available, but city officials did have examples of fines that had spiraled out of control.

One driver had three fire lane violations that, with late fines, ran up to about $1,800.

Vincent noted the example of a woman who owed $2,250 for parking in handicapped spaces. She, in fact, was allowed to park in the spaces but hadn't displayed her permit on those occasions. She ended up owing only a $25 administrative fee.

While most penalties will be waived on the amnesty dates, there will be a $10 fee if an unpaid ticket has been sent to bill collectors or there's a Department of Motor Vehicles hold on the vehicle. Parking tickets can be paid at 417 N. Seventh St. in downtown Las Vegas.

Henderson has offered parking ticket amnesty before. North Las Vegas has not. Neither city has plans to do so now.

Las Vegas has offered amnesty programs for traffic tickets before.

Those programs have been largely discontinued because people came to rely on them, but Las Vegas revisited the idea of traffic ticket amnesty last fall. More than 1,700 people visited the Las Vegas Municipal Court, which closed 821 traffic cases and collected $223,000.

"A number of those would not have been closed if we had not done this," said court administrator Jim Carmany. "We were satisfied."

Contact reporter Alan Choate at achoate@reviewjournal.com or 702-229-6435.