CNN Must Have A Huge Budget For Parking Tickets
I have been working about a block from the White House for the past 18 months or so. By far, my favorite place to eat lunch is a restaurant called Goldie’s Italian Pizza Kitchen. It’s a friendly, family-oriented place, with a warm atmosphere. There’s a big mural of Venice on one wall, and the owners took advantage of an ugly structural column near another wall of the restaurant by painting it to look like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. They’ve got a great chicken parmesan sub.
But I digress. I wanted to write today about the fact that, for as long as I can remember, there have been one or more CNN vans parked illegally outside Goldies. Without fail. It’s like a reserved spot or something.
I’ve noticed this because there are always a handful of tickets under the windshield wiper of each of these vans. I never really gave it much thought until yesterday, when I saw one of these vans pull into the illegal spot, and watched an entire film crew, with cameras, get out and start walking to the White House.
Now, in hindsight I suppose this is an obvious explanation. The parking spaces are right across the street from the Old Executive Office Building, so they would be incredibly convenient for a film crew that needed to set up on the White House lawn. The reason it’s been bugging me, though, is that it’s just such a stupid way to do business.
I mean, either the spaces are a traffic hazard, or they’re not. If they are, then the D.C. police (or Secret Service, or whichever guys in mirrored sunglasses have jurisdiction) should do something more than just continue issuing tickets. They should tow, boot, or confiscate the vans. Seeing as the street is a narrow, one-way street – and since the vans really do kind of crowd traffic – my guess is that this is the appropriate way to go.
But if it’s not a traffic hazard, then shouldn’t someone at CNN call the right person and get parking permits, instead of simply issuing tickets every single day? I mean, it would just make sense, right?
I know this seems like a trivial thing to complain about, but then, so is that cut on the roof of your mouth that won’t seem to heal because you keep tonguing it. I guess it’s just the OCD in me.