- Shane and Hannah Burcaw got a parking ticket for $60 back into the space.
- The couple appealed to the parking enforcement office about the matter, but the appeal was denied.
- However, thanks to contacting the state’s official inspector, the rule has now changed.
YouTubers Shane and Anna Burcaw celebrated the change made by California parking officials after they were found to be parking the wrong way in a disabled spot.
In the latest episode on their podcast “Junkyard Mayhem,” the couple talked about their experience with West Hollywood rules that would prevent drivers from returning to the location—even in cases like this where it was necessary to do so.
The couple has grown their YouTube channel Squirmy and Grubs to over a million subscribers with posts about their lives as a couple in which one of them is disabled.
It’s not about getting a parking ticket late March after meeting his manager for lunch in West Hollywood.
“If you’re familiar with West Hollywood, it’s nowhere to park,” Shane said in a previous post. Anna noted that the various spots don’t work for them because their car needs three feet of clearance for Shane to get out with his wheelchair.
The couple said they were looking at the front of the parking lot when they arrived.
As for Shane’s left arm, Anna said, so she turned in. Later, he spotted a sign that said “head in parking only.”
“And I was like, first of all, why? Give me a good reason, because this doesn’t make sense,” Anna said. “After all, if we don’t save like this, we’re not going to lunch because there’s literally no other parking spot for us to use.”
The couple decided to take the risk, but were returned with a $60 fine with a note of “failure to obey the signal.”
“It was the only accessible parking spot in a mile radius,” Shane said. “It’s not fair.”
Anna took a photo of Shane in the area and wrote an appeal to the West Hollywood parking enforcement office. On the fifth day, it was denied.
“If I can’t appeal the ticket, I’d like to change the whole law,” Anna said, describing her reaction at the time. “However, I wonder how I can get that sign removed.”
“I’d be happy to take this all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary,” Shane said.
Two weeks later, Shane and Anna posted an update, celebrating the rule change.
Anna said one of her students emailed the city council in West Hollywood, which provided a response from parking officials. They said the chief rule is that “parking officers do not have to walk around the vehicle to check the number plate.”
Anna called it “the most asinine reasoning for that rule I’ve ever heard.”
“It wasn’t a safety concern that someone couldn’t walk five feet to the plate,” he said.
The email also contained a solution: the state of those public properties the city knew were “repeating insults” and to remove the signs from all of its parking lots in West Hollywood, they said.
“Every public parking lot in West Hollywood is now in front or back parking,” Shane said. “And I think it’s amazing. What a great win for the facility.”
In a statement sent to Insider, an official with West Hollywood’s parking enforcement confirmed the regulatory change in parking areas, stating that the cap on parking requirements existed “to facilitate the city’s license plate recognition system used to enforce parking.”
“These requirements did not have an impact for people who require an additional level of vehicle access and for people with specific EVs (electric vehicles),” he said. “The City of West Hollywood appreciates the constructive feedback received regarding these impacts. As a result, the City has responded by removing head-on parking requirements and related signage from parking lots in West Hollywood.”
