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No parking wars in downtown Royal Oak yet, as police hand out friendly reminders

Published  June 9, 2020 7:20pm EDT
Royal Oak
FOX 2 Detroit

ROYAK OAK, Mich. (FOX 2) - The bars and restaurants are open in downtown Royal Oak - and parking tickets are also back.

Or are they? Take the ticket out of the yellow envelope and you will find a piece of paper that looks very happy.

Royal Oak parking enforcement giving out warnings as businesses reopen

These tickets are not tickets at all, just friendly reminders to feed the meters.

"Very colorful and happy," said Lt. Al Carter of the Royal Oak Police Department.

Carter says these tickets are "friendly reminders" to feed the meter.

"We're giving them these warning letters just as a courtesy and a head's up to let you know that we will be coming back," said Carter, Royal Oak police.

The reminders will be going on for about a week. In fact, Royal Oak police put out 1,200 courtesy tickets the first day that bars and restaurants were open. 

Normally the cost would be $10 a ticket but it goes up to $25, if you don't pay within 72 hours. 

"The chief of police, I give him credit for this," Carter said. "He wanted to give everyone a little advance notice before we ease into the new norm," 

"The morning people are probably getting a few more of them so I just told them to decorate their wall with them," quipped Maureen Sage, parking enforcer. "Somebody was pretty excited about it, but then she opened it and thought it was pretty cool."