Q: Please ask the Mankato Police department how many tickets do they issue to people parking in handicap spots when they do not have a handicap parking permit.
A: This is a question that’s been asked before, and there are a few possible explanations for that.
People with the legal right to park in disability parking spots might be having trouble finding an open stall and want to ensure that rule-breakers are facing consequences for using up many of the spots. Or maybe folks are wondering if misuse of the spaces is rampant after observing someone park in a disability spot before spryly hopping out of their vehicle and running into a local discount store or supermarket.
Or perhaps lazy people are researching the odds of getting caught if they make a habit of illegally parking in a reserved spot.
Whatever the case, the number of citations issued by Mankato officers is relatively small and varies widely from year to year. Here are the stats for the past decade, courtesy of the Department of Public Safety’s records division: 9 in 2015, 12 in 2016, 46 in 2017, 16 in 2018, 27 in 2019, 11 in 2020, 11 in 2021, 8 in 2022, 38 in 2023, 16 in 2024 and 11 through early June of this year.
So, for the past 10 calendar years, the average number of annual citations has been just under 20.
Public Safety Director Jeremy Clifton said police and community service officers can enforce the disability parking laws not just in public parking areas but also in private lots such as at businesses, health care facilities, malls, retail stores and more. Usually, enforcement is complaint-driven, but not always.
“Our officers may also proactively enforce, but pro-activity often comes at private owner/manager request after acknowledgement that spaces are frequently being misused,” Clifton said.
Enforcement isn’t as simple as issuing a ticket to every vehicle in a reserved parking spot that does not have disability plates or a visible disability certificate inside the vehicle.
“Part of the enforcement is the assurance that the space is appropriately marked as designated for disabled persons and that the vehicle occupying such a space does not have appropriate permissions,” he said. “… We enforce these spaces in accordance with MN Statute 169.346.”
For any “Ask Us” readers who haven’t checked out MN Statute 169.346 recently, there are a few provisions that might not be widely known.
• The signs generally warn that violators face fines as high as $200, but people may not realize that the law sets a minimum for the fine, too: $100.
• Able-bodied people can legally park in disability spots if they are transporting someone with a disability who possesses the required parking certificate.
• If a person has a right to park in disability spot and none is available at a particular location, they are legally allowed to “park at an angle and occupy two standard parking spaces” under the law.
• The Legislature assigned the Minnesota State Council on Disability to design a new disability parking sign to ensure a uniform statewide standard is in place and specifies that the new design “must not display any variation of the word ‘handicapped’.” Property owners and managers are required to use the new design when adding disability stalls or replacing existing signs after Aug. 1.
• If someone with a disability allows a noneligible person to use their certificate, the person with the disability can lose their special parking privileges for a year.
• A person will not be penalized for simply forgetting to display their certificate when parking in a disability spot. The law specifically prohibits a conviction and fine if the person proves at or before a court appearance that they have a valid certificate and just neglected to hang it in a visible place in their vehicle.
Clifton said Mankato officers typically try to give parkers an opportunity to show they weren’t breaking the law before issuing a citation.
“Most often, we make attempts to contact the registered owner of a vehicle to ensure that enforcement actions are being made appropriately,” he said.
Contact Ask Us at The Free Press, 418 S. Second St., Mankato, MN 56001. Call Mark Fischenich at 344-6321 or email your question to mfischenich@mankatofreepress.com; put Ask Us in the subject line.