The City of Windsor is facing challenges in collecting on what's being called "a significant number" of unpaid parking tickets after changes made by the Ontario government.
Bill Kralovensky, Coordinator of Parking Services at the City of Windsor, calls it a province-wide problem and says that while they do send out notifications, some people may still not be aware of their unpaid fines or are ignoring the situation and driving with an invalid licence plate.
Kralovensky says they're still running the numbers and would only say that the number of unpaid tickets is "significant," but several sources have told AM800 News that it is well in excess of $1 million.
The province did away with licence plate stickers and the costs associated with renewing them in 2022, but drivers still had to renew their licence plates.
Then on July 1, 2024, the government moved to an automatic renewal process, meaning Ontario drivers weren't required to even renew their licence plates manually online or in person at a ServiceOntario location, where in the past any unpaid fines were collected by the Ministry of Transportation on behalf of municipalities.
Kralovensky says there are different ways the city could collect unpaid tickets moving forward.
"Everybody watches the show Parking Wars; they drive up, put a clam shell on your front tire, a boot. That's one possible way," he says. "We could impound your car through towing it. There's different ways; I just have to come up with a report, give all the options to council, and take my direction from them."
Kralovensky says they've seen cases where out-of-town students have racked up tickets on their parents cars, and their parents didn't know about it until it was time to register their plates.
"'Holy cow! I owe the City of Windsor $8,000.' So you're saying, 'I don't have $8,000 right now. I'm not going to register my plates right now.,'" he says.
Kralovensky says some of the outstanding fines will never be recouped because the person has passed away.
"The ones that are still active that we want to try and collect on; obviously we need money in the coffers right now to keep tax increases at the lowest we can, if there is even a tax increase, etc. It is out there, and we are doing our best to try and recoup," he says.
If a licence can’t be renewed automatically, the province said the vehicle owner will be notified through email, text, voicemail or mail and be required to renew manually online or in person at a ServiceOntario location.
Under the old system, a police officer on patrol could tell if a licence plate registration was up to date based on the sticker affixed to the rear plate, but now, an officer would only be able to learn that information if it was detected by Licence Plate Recognition technology or if information was sought on a driver's licence plate.
Even then, the officer could only issue a ticket for a licence plate being invalid.