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I have couple of complaints about the City of Coral Gables:
1 - Parking. Why do they have so many meters and no-one parking on these meters? Can't you see that unfortunately people dont have the means nowadays to pay parking meters? If you go down streets in Coral Gables all you see are parking meters but no cars, what is wrong with this picture?
2 - Off street parking - Another thing when you finally find a spot where you can park, you get a "Coral Gables Citizen" (mostly all asholes) saying that you are making their street look ugly. It is unfortunate that nowadays witht the way the economy is that you have people so ignorant, that they have nothing better to do but to go after those that unfortunate people like me that have to work and park in Coral Gables, one even threaten to call the police. Mind you that there are no signs that prohibit parking on these unmarked streets.
3 - Meter Maids - Let's not even go there. They wait until your time is almost ready to expire to give you a ticket. I even got a ticket once for parking on handicap spot eventhough I had a handicapped sticker (riding with my mom).
DO NOT BUY OR RENT IN CORAL GABLES, YOU ARE GOING TO GO THROUGH HELL!
Country of complaint: United States
I live and work in CG and the meter maids have made my life (and my employees) miserable. They target specific people and businesses, come around and wait till time about to expire then yell or aggressively state you are not allowed to put money in when they are there (hello?! you have to feed the meter when it expires, if they happen to be coming or waiting around, that is not my fault or problem!)
The City is inconsistent at best. They bother people like you that work here, but on some streets (like where I live) they dont bother to control traffic, speeding (me and neighbors have asked numerous times and have almost been hit more than once by flying by cars), or even parking for a part of the street where there are commercial / retail properties. Funny how some (large companies or possibly homeowners who are favored) get away w/ things while other individuals or small guys are treated badly.
The mayor, whom many of my co-workers have contacted, passes the ball to the parking director, who's answer is always to protect the meter maid! interesting since they are city employees, and I pay taxes, but my voice is not heard!
Have to agree with your thread. I know most parking authorities operate the same way, but here's my story...
Was in Miami area for business in early May 2013 and had rented a car for 3 days. Took a client to Coral Gables area on Miracle for dinner. Used PayByPhone for first time and mis-entered one digit of the six digits on the rental car's license plate. Oh yeah, it was dark, raining and traffic was whizzing by as I tried to listed to the automated prompts, such as "Press 1 for the letter A, Press 2 for the letter B, etc."
So, basically, I was issued an $18 citation even though I had over an hour left on the meter and 5 of 6 digits on license plate were correct. Perhaps randomly a car with 5 of the same digits was illegally parked at the same meter with time left on it?!?
I emailed Coral Gables with a copy of my citation and PayByPhone invoice within 24 hours as per instructions provided by PayByPhone, who was great BTW. I NEVER received a reply and even sent a second email two weeks later. Three weeks later, no response. I then got their phone number via an info request on the Miami-Dade website.
The guy told me that he can't do anything about my citation b/c it's "out of their system" now and that I should've contacted them within 48 hours of receiving the citation. Hello!?! I did that! He said that they only check their email account "periodically." He then suggested that I either pay the citation or schedule a court date.
Of course, I can't fight it b/c I'm in Georgia!
Screw Coral Cables...I will never take a client within the city limits again and I will tell this story over and over again every chance I get. You can have my $18 AND all the bad PR that comes with it.