It’s no secret: Locals know that parking is at a premium on Monroe County roads to tourist-crammed public-access parks and beaches, especially in Key Largo. Often, a driver who is anxious to get on the water will park willy-nilly on a residential road in front of a No Parking sign close to a beach or boat ramp and accept the $20 fine.
To deter this illegal parking, the Monroe County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) increased the fines from $20 to $200 at its June 16 meeting. The fines are a noncriminal civil penalty, and the increase took effect immediately.
At another recent BOCC meeting, Commissioner Mike Forster showed various pictures and videos of areas where parking violations with No Parking signs on county roads regularly occur. Many violators are happy to accept a relatively cheap $20 ticket in exchange for a day of parking and guilt-free boating and/or fishing. For example, per timeout.com, parking in Miami Beach costs $4 an hour.
Forster showed photos of a man parked outside the fence at Key Largo’s Harry Harris Park, in front of a No Parking sign. The man had attempted to avoid any penalty by putting a boot on his tire. Officers gave this man a $20 parking ticket anyway. He accepted the $20 ticket and spent all day in the water on his boat. These are the types of situations that the county would like to avoid by raising the No Parking fee to $200.
Keys Weekly requested a record search by the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office to provide the total number of parking tickets that were given out so far in 2021.
The total number of parking tickets given out by deputies for all parking offenses in unincorporated Monroe County — including such violations as parking in handicap spots or in front of a driveway, etc. — was 673.
The total number of tickets given to violators in front of signs on county roads close to a park or a beach — the type of ticket that will now cost $200 — was 388. This number is more than half of the total amount of parking tickets that were given out in Monroe County in 2021.
Forster said the hotspots for parking fines are Harry Harris Park, Sunset Point Park 2 and Card Sound Road. “We have to put teeth into it and change the culture of acceptance,” he said.
“And it’s a burden on the sheriff’s department,” he said. He’s been told that, for example, a deputy will give a ticket to someone on Card Sound Road, the violator will leave, then the deputy will see another car pulling right in.
To level out this burden, Forster said he would like to see parks and recreation employees get trained to hand out parking tickets.
“It’s something we deal with in the Upper Keys — we are a day-tripper destination,” he said.
