Around New England

Man Tries To Pay Parking Ticket From 1978

June 12, 2020

A Cape Cod man has sought to pay a parking ticket he got in southern Maine 42 years ago, but the local police say no dice.

Gary Urgonski, now 72, lived in Newton, Massachusetts on July 28, 1978, when he drove to Long Sands Beach in York, Maine and parked his brown Toyota at a parking meter, according to The Portsmouth Herald.

He overstayed the meter, and when he got back to the car he found a $3 parking ticket.

He didn’t pay it, figuring that since he didn’t live in Maine it didn’t matter. But he kept the ticket, occasionally using it as a bookmark, he told The Portsmouth Herald.

Last week, he decided to pay it. He sent a check for $4 – for the original $3 fine plus a $1 late fee – to the police department of York, Maine with the ticket and a letter saying, among other things, “I hope I can now safely travel through the state of Maine without always looking in my rearview mirror.”

A York police lieutenant called him Ugronski, who now lives in South Dennis on Cape Cod, and told him the department isn’t going to deposit the check but instead wants to frame it, and asked for permission to share the story on the police department’s Facebook page.

Ugronski, now retired, said he’d like to visit the police station in York and meet the lieutenant.

“I hope as a society we all can figure out how we can right the various wrongs that we feel exist and do it in a happy, peaceful, loving way so we can have a better world and continue to lift each other up,” Ugronski said, according to The Portsmouth Herald.

Images taken from the Facebook page of the York Police Department in York, Maine.