AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Parking has become such a nightmare in the snow, and some people aren't going down without a fight. From Baltimore, Scott Maucione of member station WYPR looks at the ethics of spot-saving in winter weather.
SCOTT MAUCIONE, BYLINE: Sometimes it's folding chairs. Other times it's bright orange cones. People will even cordon off their prized real estate with caution tape. The most cavalier will just leave a shovel sticking up in a leftover patch of snow like a sword in a stone. These efforts send a clear message - I shoveled it. I'm keeping it. The matter's contentious here. Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott had a simple message for residents on WBAL-TV.
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BRANDON SCOTT: Don't do it. If I see your chair, it's coming with me and going into the trash.
MAUCIONE: The issue of parking's especially heated after near-record-breaking cold has refrozen the snow. Today, Baltimore is a graveyard for plastic shovels.
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MAUCIONE: Kelly Hunter (ph) hired some neighborhood kids to clear her residential sidewalk and the street, and says staking a spot is fair game.
KELLY HUNTER: I say if they shoveled the spot, it should be their spot 'cause they cleaned it out. That's where their car was.
MAUCIONE: Ned Sparrow owns a bookstore in the busy Station North neighborhood. He still remembers the last time he took a blocked-off spot.
NED SPARROW: So there were garbage cans on the car when I woke up in the morning.
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MAUCIONE: Scott Pennington's in his van all day and is done with parking politics. He dug out multiple cars over the last week, but says it's just too much work to save a spot.
SCOTT PENNINGTON: I gave that up a few years ago because I had two incidents where I saved my seat, but somebody took it anyways. And so now I just shovel enough to get my vehicle out and don't clean it up too much, so that if somebody takes it, I only put so much work into it.
MAUCIONE: During a snowstorm, parking can verge on a moral crisis. What if the person taking a spot or reserving a spot has a broken leg or is 8 1/2 months pregnant or just needs to make a quick trip to the store? But much like the Wild West, it's vigilante justice in the world of frozen city streets. Emily Heleba waited all week to shovel her car out. Now, halfway through the job, she has no hope she'll actually be able to keep the spot.
EMILY HELEBA: I've seen a lot of stories of people who do that, and then their neighbors come out and throw their chairs out and steal the spot anyway. So...
MAUCIONE: Temperatures are forecast to remain below freezing for many more days, so the parking battles will continue.
For NPR News, I'm Scott Maucione in Baltimore. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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