The city of Worcester, Massachusetts, will reimburse close to 350 people who had their cars towed after a winter parking ban went into effect during the early morning hours.
The Telegram & Gazette reports a higher-than-anticipated snowfall caused the city to initiate the parking ban around 1:00 a.m. Monday, retroactive to 11:30 p.m. Sunday.
The ban was tweeted by the Department of Public Works & Parks' SnowParkingBan Twitter account at 1:02 a.m., but the city's emergency messaging system didn't send the alert until about 8 a.m. Monday.
Some resident spoke out about the fines.
Luis Rivera said, "iI's kind of inconvenient because if you ask me they just authorize people to just take money from everybody else overnight. So everybody's sleeping, getting ready to go to work the next day. Next thing you know they owe $127 plus a ticket which is $50."
Spokesman John Hill says 739 people were issued $50 tickets for violating the ban. Police say a total of 347 of those violators had their vehicles towed.
DPW Assistant Commissioner Matthew Labovites says officials incorrectly determined that the ban wouldn't be necessary.
