The explosive popularity of Santa Barbara’s so-called Funk Zone has engendered such intense competition among business owners for limited on-street parking spaces that they’ve taken to erecting faux “No Parking” signs to protect spaces for their customers.
The problem, at least according to city traffic engineers, is that private property owners have no legal authority to dictate who gets to park on public streets. As a result, the engineers have taken their case to the City Council’s ordinance committee, which they’ve asked to designate the fake “No Parking” signs as a “public nuisance.”
If approved by the entire council, the ordinance would empower city police to remove such signs.