Thomas Breen Photos
Perez and Arciuolo review routes before hitting the streets.
As a woman rushed out of a laundromat Wednesday night pleading with Kim Arciuolo to spare her a $100 ticket and a tow, Arciuolo thought back to the many tickets that she received in the late 1990s as a barista at the original Willoughby’s café on Chapel Street. And she gave the woman a break.
Now a parking enforcement officer with the city’s Transportation, Traffic and Parking (TT&P) department, Arciuolo gives out more tickets than she receives. But as she issued tickets to enforce a snow emergency parking ban before it was called off Wednesday night, she kept in mind what it feels like to be on the other side of traffic law enforcement, trying to stay a step ahead of the city taggers while racing to get your work done.
“I think I can bring a little empathy and delicacy to my job,” Arciuolo said as she and her colleague Orlando Perez began their six-hour shift from 6 p.m. to midnight.
Arciuolo and Perez were one of four two-person teams sent out by TT&P on Wednesday night to patrol and clear the city’s snow emergency routes as the city braced for its fourth Nor’easter this month. Traveling around East Rock and Fair Haven with four tow trucks close behind, they tagged and towed at least 15 cars in their first two hours on the job.
For the second week in a row, New Haven prepared in full for a Nor’easter that walloped, it seemed, just about every place in the Northeast but New Haven. More than a foot of snow fell elsewhere; but instead of up to the 15 predicted inches here, as if by divine decree, not even an inch ended up on streets or sidewalks.
That left officials deciding hour by hour whether to proceed with emergency plans. They needed to continue to be ready to meet the impact of the National Weather Service’s predicted storm, while adapting to changing circumstances.
They gradually called off outside contractors through this storm to keep costs in check, according to emergency management chief Rick Fontana. By 5 a.m. Thursday, the city realized the streets would remain clear. Officials called off the citywide parking ban effective 6 a.m., 12 hours early.
On Wednesday night, they still didn’t know if at least some of the heavy snow would come as expected. Between 6 and 8:15 p.m., it kept crews like Arciuolo and Perez tagging cars before calling off the operation. In that time, the city issued a total of 65 tickets and tagged two cars, according to Fontana.
At least 15 of those tickets were issued by Arciuolo and Perez as they traveled around East Rock and Fair Haven with four tow trucks close behind.
Pre-Job Education
Perez wraps up a ticket as an offending car is tagged and towed on Whitney Avenue.
A North Haven native who studied creative writing at the Educational Center for the Arts (ECA), Arciuolo has been a part-time New Haven parking enforcement officer for two years.
Although she now lives in Hamden with her 5‑year-old son, Arciuolo has spent the past two decades working and living in different corners of the Elm City. She has lived in Dwight-Kensington, in Wooster Square, on Eld Street, and in the old Daggett Square artist lofts in the Hill. She worked as a barista at the original Willougby’s, and as a bartender at the Owl Shop and at the old Anchor Bar on College Street.
When she first applied for the job as a parking enforcement officer in 2016, she was worried that the city would reject her because of all the tickets she wracked up (and paid for) while rushing in and out of Willoughby’s on Chapel Street, trying to avoid parking fines while still brewing and serving coffee.
“The city has gotten a lot of money from me in parking tickets over the years,” she said with a smile.
But the city took her on. Perez, her parking enforcement partner on Wednesday night, had first trained her in how to do her job.
“We’re the face of the city,” Arciuolo said as she and Perez drove up Whitney Avenue looking for cars in violation of the parking ban. “We try to be a friendly, familiar face.”
She said that reciprocity is the word that she keeps in the back of her mind every time she goes out on the job. When she has to issue a ticket, she said, she tries to do so in as kind and respectful a manner as possible, recognizing full well that the person at the other end of the ticket is likely not happy about it, and not thinking about the public safety reasons for the fine.
Snow emergency sign on Whitney Avenue.
Two minutes into their shift, Arciuolo and Perez found their first car in violation of the ban, parked outside of Docuprint on Whitney Avenue.
Perez hopped out of the car, took a picture of the car and the nearby traffic sign that said that parking was not allowed during declared snow emergencies, and printed out a ticket from a handheld printer connected to his phone.
He handed the ticket to one of the tow truck drivers, who pulled in front of the car, slid two metallic clamps around the car’s front wheels, lifted the front half of the car and towed it to the company’s lot off of Middletown Avenue.
That process would become a familiar one as the night progressed.
Perez, a Venezuelan immigrant who has worked for five years as a part-time New Haven parking enforcement officer and for seven years as a full-time Spanish language interpreter for the state’s court system, said that he too has been ticketed and towed during his time in New Haven. Though that last time occurred before he started working in the field himself.
“You’re not a true New Havener if you haven’t had your car ticketed or towed at least once,” he joked.
Joking aside, Arciuolo and Perez both recognized that the consequences of parking enforcement during snow emergencies are more severe than a typical day walking beats. Whereas they usually hand out $20 tickets for parking violations, snow emergency violations called for $100 tickets and towing.
They knew that they had to clear the city’s snow emergency routes in case plows or emergency vehicles needed to move quickly through once the snow fall picked up. But they also wanted to make sure that they gave residents every chance they could to move their cars and avoid the fine and inconvenience.
Willow Street Break
Perez (left) and Arciuolo take on both sides of Ferry Street.
As Arciuolo prepared the ticket for the car parked on Willow Street, a woman rushed out of a nearby laundromat and breathlessly told Arciuolo that she would move the car right now. With a wave and a reminder that a snow emergency parking ban was in effect, Arciuolo called off the tow truck and canceled out her ticket.
The streets were mostly clear of parked cars as they headed from East Rock into Fair Haven. But, as the sun set and the air turned frigid, they found at least one or two parked cars per block as they worked their way up Ferry Street. The street was a snow emergency route, and all of the cars were in violation of the parking ban.
Arciuolo and Perez took opposite sides of the street and tag teamed the blocks, residents watching from third story windows or rushing from nearby corner stores to plead their cases with the enforcement officers. Whenever the owner of a car could be identified and promised to move his or her car immediately, Arciuolo and Perez waved off the tow trucks from their steady rhythm of sliding, clamping, lifting and towing.
Multiple parking ban offenders at Ferry and Grafton.
“That block does not look good,” Perez said as he and Arciuolo arrived at Ferry Street and Grafton Street. At least six cars were parked on both sides of the block.
All of the tow trucks were on their way to or back from the tow lots, so Perez and Arciuolo waited outside in the cold and began typing out the tickets, unable to finish them until the trucks returned.
Perez hands the address of the towing company to a man whose brother’s car was just towed.
After the first car was towed, neighbors looked out from their windows. One man rushed out of his yard and said that he would move the two cars parked in front of his home. Another asked for the address of the towing company, so that he could pass it along to his brother, who’s car had just been towed.
Arciuolo and Perez ticketed the cars efficiently, and thanked the owners for moving their cars when they were around and able to. One driver rolled down his window and shouted, “It’s not even snowing yet!”
Arciuolo was unfazed.
She told herself that she was just doing her job, that the emergency routes needed to be cleared in case plows later arrive to clear streets, that the parking ban was in effect for a reason, even if the heaviest snowfall had not materialized, at least not yet.
“You want to wear the uniform,” Arciuolo said as she prepared to ticket another car. “You don’t want the uniform to wear you.”