Court Opinion

ID: 9847817
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:07:50.636603+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:35.802992
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J.
I dissent.
Reduced to its simplest dimension, the majority opinion instructs the City of Alhambra that it cannot retain its 50-cent overparking fee notice and that it must process overtime parking through municipal court as a $5 bail forfeiture. No compassion is shown for the economic interests of motorists who may be delayed moments longer than anticipated, or for merchants who exist on the trade engendered by the visiting motorists, or for the image of Alhambra as a considerate host. The crucial factor, as seen by the majority, is the revenue demanded by the County of Los Angeles.
*197The essential question is whether the state Vehicle Code preempts the field of street parking. The test for preemption was declared by this court in In re Hubbard (1964) 62 Cal.2d 119, 127 [41 Cal.Rptr. 393]: a local entity may not legislate with regard to matters covered by general law if (a) the local legislation attempts to impose additional requirements, or (b) the subject matter is one of state concern and the general law occupies the entire field, or (c) the subject matter is of such statewide concern that it can no longer be deemed a municipal affair.
The Alhambra scheme does not offend the foregoing limitations. First, the local legislation imposes fewer, not more, burdens than state law. Second, the subject matter, local parking, is not of state concern and the general law specifically permits cities to set parking meter fees. (Veh. Code, § 22508.) Third, there is no indication that the Legislature deemed parking meter regulations to be anything but a municipal affair; indeed, the right of municipalities to regulate local parking is recognized by statute. (Veh. Code, § 22507.)
There is no question that Alhambra may permit free parking on its streets or it may charge therefor. It may also use meters as a means of collecting fees for parking, and it may set the fee rates per minute or per hour. I see no reason in law or logic why it may not also prescribe the fee per hour for additional or overtirpe parking. That is all Alhambra has done in its ordinance 12.08.010: “... a fee shall be charged for overtime or illegal parking in any parking lot or in any space adjacent to any parking meter, which fee shall be in the amount of fifty cents for each hour or portion thereof....”
In consideration of the convenience of its motorists the city further provided in the ordinance that the “fee shall be placed in the envelope furnished with such notice [of overtime] and the envelope and fee shall be deposited... in any courtesy box furnished by the city for that purpose.” If it is permissible for a city to provide the fee for hourly parking to be deposited in a meter, I fail to see why the city is prohibited from permitting the overtime parking fee to be deposited in an envelope provided for that purpose.
Only if and when the prescribed fees are not paid does a vehicle code violation occur. At that point the motorist is charged with an infraction and must deposit bail in the municipal court. Thereafter if bail is forfeited or a fine imposed the County of Los Angeles is entitled to its *198percentage interest in the sum collected. No statute gives the county any interest in parking meter fees, hourly or overtime, whether placed in the meter or in an envelope, prior to the time an actual infraction occurs.
My view on the foregoing is consistent with the recent conclusion of the Court of Appeal in Board of Trustees v. Municipal Court (1979) 95 Cal.App.3d 322 [157 Cal.Rptr. 133]. Although the case involved a state college campus rather than a city, the court approved “as an administrative function” the payment of a parking ticket fee to the college rather than to a court “because it is neither true bail nor a true forfeiture of bail.”
In the exercise of its municipal powers the City of Alhambra has attempted to avoid burdening its motorists, and at the same time it has sought to eliminate a substantial caseload from our overtaxed judicial system. The acquisitive desires of the County of Los Angeles should not frustrate those salutary goals.
I would reverse the judgment.
Clark, J., concurred.
Appellant’s petition for a rehearing was denied July 17, 1980. Mosk, J., and Clark, J., were of the opinion that the petition should be granted.