police, fire, law

How to Instantly Lose $290 at the Local First AZ Fall Fest

This is an open letter to Local First Arizona after 19 of the Arizona businesses that attended the Fall Fest each ended up with $290 parking tickets after parking in a dirt lot as instructed by Local First AZ.

The violation? Parking on Non-Dust-Free Lot or Area.

Talk about having a teed-off, 117-mile ride back to Phoenix that evening!

Please Note: The headings were not part of the letter sent, but added to make it easier to read.

Here Comes the Letter

Hi Thomas,

I am one of the 19 Local First Arizona vendors who received a $290 parking ticket from the City of Phoenix after parking in the lot at 1102 N. Third Street as specifically instructed by Local First representatives. As you know, this ticket was issued on Nov. 4, 2017, to a number of vendors attending the Arizona Fall Festival.

The ticket was accompanied by a note from your organization instructing me NOT to pay the ticket and to instead request a hearing.

Since the note stated that Local First AZ would help us businesses fight the ticket, I am confident your organization will indeed provide assistance since this fiasco is in no way the fault of the vendors who were following your precise parking instructions.

Double Woe for Tucsonans

Because I run my writing and art business out of my Tucson home and making the 4-hour round-trip drive to Phoenix would result in loss of full day’s loss of wages, the assistance I require includes:

Requesting a court hearing on my behalf
Showing up for the hearing on my behalf as a representative as I cannot sacrifice yet another day to drive to Phoenix and back
Successfully fighting the ticket at the hearing, explaining how Local First AZ is responsible for the parking violation since the group instructor vendors to park in the aforementioned lot
Payment of the $290 fine by Local First AZ if the hearing is not successful on behalf of the vendors

Triple Woe for One-Woman Show

I am a small, single-person operation. Attending the fair required a lot of time, effort, energy, resources and money. While the overall experience was satisfactory, that satisfaction was quickly annihilated upon finding a $290 ticket jammed beneath my windshield wiper after the event.

While Local First AZ is an organization aimed at helping local Arizona businesses, this parking ticket fiasco hurts them dearly. I do hope your organization steps forward to correct the problem on behalf of the handful of local businesses that were merely following your instructions.

All the Blah Blah Enclosures

Attached please find a copy of my vehicle registration and the parking ticket. I am NOT mailing back a request for a hearing, as the ticket indicates this action should be taken ONLY by registered vehicle owners who can show up in court (or risk a default judgement being taken against them).

For Local First to request a court hearing on behalf of the registered owner of the vehicle, the ticket says to:

Call 602-262-6785, press 3, then 2

Please confirm you’ve received this letter and that the actions outlined are part of the Local First strategy for helping the businesses to which you’ve promised assistance.

Thank you,

Ryn Gargulinski | Ryndustries

Booth W40: Books, Art and Wheels

local first az fall fest — Rynski at the fall fest in happier times before the $290 parking ticket

Tucsonan discovers how a severed arm can haunt you (even when it’s not your arm)

Being young, drunk and stupid can come with lifelong consequences. And those consequences can come even if you weren’t drunk. Just ask a Tucson guy we’ll call Sam.

Twenty-something Sam was an upstanding person: a former soldier, an intelligent and compassionate chap who was aiming for grand things.

“I wanted to be a lawyer to help people, ” he writes in an email. Sam instead found himself on the other side of the law as a defendant in a crime that got plenty of press due to its grisly nature.

The crime involved a severed arm.

Banning traffic on Congress Street is great start for making Tucson more pedestrian-friendly

Despite Tucson’s copious amounts of crosswalks, being a pedestrian in Old Pueblo means taking your life in your hands.

Many motorists have neither patience nor tolerance for pedestrians, with 2010 Tucson Police Department statistics showing seven pedestrians hit and killed by vehicles and 210 hit and injured, with 52 of them hit and runs. Statistics from 2011 are even worse, with at least 16 pedestrians killed by vehicles and 220 injured, with a total of 71 hit and runs.

Man versus car does not fare well for the man.

All that could soon change, at least in a little pocket of town, with Mayor Jonathan Rothchild’s revival of a long-dead proposal of making Congress Street open to pedestrians only. The proposal was shot down in the past, and may be again because it still has one big problem: it’s much too limited.

Shutting off Congress to traffic will only make the die-hard drivers shuttle their vehicles to the surrounding streets, making them more clogged up and blocked than they already are. To truly benefit from transforming any downtown area into a pedestrian-only jubilee, the proposal needs to go the whole hog to get rid of road hogs and make all of downtown vehicle-free.

Alabama Does What Arizona Won’t: Uphold Immigration Law

Alabama now has the toughest immigration law in the nation. Leave it to a state some 1, 200 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border to show Arizona how it’s done.

What’s next — saguaro-care tips from Wisconsin?

Regardless from whence we get our cactus-care guidelines, we do know the Arizona judge’s decisions that quashed large sections of our version of the law rendered it basically useless. U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton only upheld a few portions of the highly controversial law, also known as big, bad SB 1070. One was stiffer penalties if you are caught crossing the border with illegal immigrants stuffed in the back of a piñata truck or hiding them in an unfinished Phoenix garage.

Tucson Peeping Toms on the rise, pun not intended

If you thought Tucson’s seemingly zillions of traffic cameras are an invasion of privacy, just wait until you hear about our Peeping Toms.

It’s been a busy year for Old Pueblo voyeurs, with peeping and privacy invasion crime statistics up from last year in a couple of categories. And with the arrest of one bold and brazen dude earlier this month who actually got down on his knees and looked up a woman’s dress in the middle of a home furnishing store, the trend doesn’t show signs of stopping anytime soon.

Ladies, it may be high time to invest in some granny panties.

A man was arrested as a suspect in the home furnishing store case after the woman notified police after the incident. But while it was going on, she had absolutely no clue, according to the Tucson Police Department press release.

The dude began following the woman around the HomeGoods store at 7170 East Broadway, the release notes, and when he noticed her attention captured by something in the shop, he made his move.

“The subject quickly knelt down on the floor behind the victim and while on his hands and knees peered up her dress. He was able to get back on his feet and walk away from her without the victim noticing his actions.”

Dog Gone in Tucson: Help find stolen English bulldog named Winston

Dog thefts are always sickening, but the English bulldog reportedly stolen Aug. 30 from the Mountain Vista Mobile Home Park is even more heartbreaking.

The dog, named Winston, is owned by Richard A. Gomez, who is currently serving in the U.S. Army in Afghanistan. Winston was under the care of Richard’s mother, Rose Rangel, when the dog disappeared from the mobile home park, 4545 S. Mission Road.

“She’s overwhelmed with her adult daughter and grandchildren including newborn living with her and daily demands of work,” Rose’s coworker and dog lover Kate Hensman writes in an e-mail. “It only took a minute or two but Winston is gone. Don’t know if this is another sad story with no happy ending….”

Mix in more heartbreak with the fact that Winston, a 2-year-old neutered male, suffers from a chronic respiratory condition known as “foggy lungs” and needs regular medication. He also has folds beneath his eyes that need constant cleaning and attention and a slight ear infection.

If you have him, that’s a lot of work – and a lot of cash to take him to the vet. Why not just take him home?

Those who can, please keep an eye out for Winston and call Rose immediately upon sighting him.

Rose at home: (520) 449-0794
Rose at work: (520) 514-2704 ext. 275 (ask for Rose Rangel)

Please pass the word around to get Winston back home.

Thanks!
ryn.

police, fire, law

Here Comes the Letter

Double Woe for Tucsonans

Triple Woe for One-Woman Show

All the Blah Blah Enclosures

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