A Las Vegas man is stuck paying a parking ticket he says he should never have gotten.
Most of us know the feeling of seeing a dreaded parking ticket on the windshield.
"This is my first parking ticket I've ever had, so it's frustrating," said Ryan Alley, who said he got the ticket on Nov. 30. "I was very shocked because I knew we hadn't been there long enough."
Alley said he picked up his stepson from Western High School at 12:16 p.m. and took him to Valley Hospital for a one o'clock appointment. He said he parked in three hour parking and came back to his car at 2:45 p.m. Alley said he was parked for about two hours but got a ticket that said he was there more than three.
"They're trying to say that I did something wrong when I know I didn't and that's questioning my integrity," Alley said.
So what can you do if you get a parking ticket?
"Parking tickets, unfortunately, are civil punishment, not a criminal infraction, so you don't have a constitutional right to a hearing, you don't have a lot of rights," said Attorney Craig Mueller, of Mueller, Hinds and Associates. "As anybody's who's got a parking ticket in Downtown Las Vegas finds out, that whole system is pretty much designed to extract as much money as possible from your wallet.
Mueller said you can appeal parking tickets, and Alley is trying. Alley brought this document from his son's school, proving he picked him up at 12:16 p.m. But that wasn't enough, and they're still asking him to pay up.
"$20, that's dinner, that's food in our mouths for our family," Alley said.
He can appeal again and said he plans to do so.
13 Action News called the city of Las Vegas to see if they had an explanation or might be willing to help Alley, but they were closed Friday for the holiday weekend.
