Ticketed Off

by Nicole Sarrubbo

When Ryan Wexelblatt walked out to his car two Thursday mornings ago, he could not believe what he saw: Every single car on Wood Street had a Philadelphia Parking Authority ticket on its windshield. Confused, he picked the "ticket" off his windshield and opened it. Low and behold, the "ticket" was really a flier for the Old City "Parkominium," encouraging residents to purchase a space and not let "another ticket ruin your day." Wexelblatt was outraged: "It literally was the most obnoxious thing I had ever seen." That morning Wexelblatt e-mailed the Parkominium's realtors, Prudential Fox & Roach. The response from the realty agent was apologetic, but irritated Wexelblatt even more when the e-mail encouraged him to attend the grand opening of the structure the next day. From the e-mail: "Perhaps you would like to purchase a parking spot? They start at $39,900. Think of it this way. If you are willing and able to purchase a spot in a secure garage, no one will ever be able to put another nasty violation on your windshield." Mike McCann from Prudential Fox & Roach said it was the developer who distributed the violation fliers and the realtors only received two complaints about them.

"For the inconvenience you caused me of having to take these off my windshield, I did you the favor of taking every single flier off every single car I saw them on," wrote Wexelblatt in his original e-mail. In response to Wexelblatt's threat to write a letter to the press should they flier in such a way again, the e-mail from Prudential happily exclaimed, "You can tell Channel 6, Fox 29, Philly Inquirer and Gov. Rendell how incensed you are that someone took the time to put an invitation with a flier on your car."