NEW ORLEANS -- Getting booted in the city could become a little harder under an ordinance proposed by City Councilman Jared Brossett.
The ordinance would raise the threshold for booting cars from one unpaid parking ticket to three, something state Sen. JP Morrell had tried to do through a proposed change to state law.
Brossett acknowledged the city “does rely heavily on traffic citations to pay for government services” but added that the cost for residents “has proven unsustainable.”
“This policy has been allowed to go on in New Orleans for far too long,” he said.
The city revised its booting statute in 2009, allowing “any unoccupied vehicle found on street or highway against which there is a recorded and unpaid delinquent parking citation issued under the authority of this article shall be immediately immobilized or towed and impounded, or both, by any police officer or other person duly authorized.”
Morrell’s Senate bill passed the Transportation, Highways and Public Works Committee after it was amended to apply only to New Orleans.
He recently told The Advocate he introduced the bill since the city changed the practice of booting vehicles after three unpaid tickets to one and many people who live below the poverty line in New Orleans find it hard to scrape together the hundreds of dollars it can cost to get a boot removed.
Morrell told WWL-TV on Thursday that he shelved his bill after Brossett introduced his ordinance.
"This is a local matter that is best handled locally,” Morrell said.