Kim Apodaca, a local business owner, said parking enforcement officers in Nob Hill are making a difficult parking situation worse by issuing unnecessary tickets.
Apodaca is the proprietor of Andy & Edie in Albuquerque, according to KRQE. She usually parks near her shop and said she has been ticketed despite obeying the parking rules.
"I'm not going to pay $20 for a ticket when I followed the rules and regulations," she said. "I've had two different occasions where I've parked and paid my meter through the app and I've still gotten ticketed because they overlooked it."
She once confronted a parking officer writing a ticket while there was time left on the meter near her car, KRQE reported.
"I ran outside and said, 'Hey, wait; I've already paid my parking meter through the app,'" Apodaca said. "He said, 'No, you didn't.' I said, 'Yes, I did. You need to look at it again.'"
A photo of the receipt for the meter showed that the time expired at 2:52 p.m., according to KRQE. Her parking ticket was marked at 2:19 p.m. Apodaca contacted the city parking division to dispute the ticket. She sent in a photo of the ticket, and a clerk said she would send it to the supervisor. The ticket was not dismissed, so Apodaca was compelled to fight a ticket that she should not have been given.
She said the parking issue is causing her to lose business.
"People are already having a hard time coming to Nob Hill, ... complaining about the parking, and then they make it that much more difficult," Apodaca said.
The parking app sends a notification to the user when the time expires, KRQE reported. This allows the user to pay the meter from their phone. It does not help, Apodaca said, if parking enforcement officers do not utilize the app.
"I did everything right," she said. "I paid through my app, and you're overlooking [it]. You're not doing your job."