A parking chair is a chair that is used by a vehicle owner to informally mark a parking space as reserved for oneself. Other items are also used for this purpose, including trash cans, ladders, ironing boards, and other similar-sized objects that are commonly found in households. For curbside parking spaces, two or more items are normally used.[1]
The practice of using parking chairs is common in inclement weather in urban residential areas of the United States where parking is scarce and vehicle owners do not wish to risk losing their vehicle's previously occupied space in its absence. Other spaces may be scarce due to accumulation of plowed snow, and the owner of the vehicle may have invested considerable work in clearing the space, just to get the car out in the first place.
This practice is considered especially common in the city of Pittsburgh,[2] and is also prevalent in Chicago and other cities in the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes regions.
In snowstorms, vehicle owners with such a need mark the space as their own that their vehicle previously occupied after digging out the heavy snow that covered the vehicle and blocked them in.[3] The legality and level of enforcement of existing laws pertaining to this practice varies by location. Generally, curbside parking spaces are public property and are available to vehicles on a first-come, first-served basis. Still, respecting these makeshift markers has been accepted by citizens as a common courtesy during snowstorms.[4]
The practice is often most effective when accompanied by the threat or actual occurrence of a "look of consternation" from a vigilant, often elderly neighbor who "keeps watch" in their neighbor's absence. While use is year-round, it is a particularly time-honored tradition in times of great snowfall accumulation, when a resident who "digs out" their spot on the street essentially declares eminent domain,[5] which often goes unchallenged by neighbors for fear of retribution.[6][7]
The idea of the practice is that the person who has reserved the space is declaring dibs to the space from which s/he has freed his/her vehicle for future parking during the remainder of the storm and as long as snow remains on the ground.[8] It is generally a Lockean recognition that the effort of the physical exertion of digging provides an entitlement to the space where the vehicle was previously located.[9] But in some instances, spaces get reserved in this fashion even before a snowstorm starts.[10][11]
The practice is common throughout areas of the United States susceptible to large amounts of snow and where curbside parking on residential streets is the norm, especially in the Northeast.[12]
Photographic evidence of the tradition has been found dating back at least to the 1950s. It is believed that the practice has existed even earlier, as the number of vehicles on a residential streets has exceeded the number of available spaces.[13]
The items used have sometimes been referred to as "Pittsburgh Parking Chair" due to their use in the city of Pittsburgh.[13] In severe instances of snow accumulation, this practice extends beyond the city of Pittsburgh proper, and can be found in semi-suburban neighborhoods that border the city limits, such as Brentwood, Crafton and Dormont. While such ad hoc parking restrictions have no legal standing in the City of Pittsburgh, common and long standing community tradition supports their use. As the "parking chair" is part of the culture of the city, local police generally turn a blind eye to these impromptu markers, which under legal jurisdiction, technically qualify as "abandoned furniture."[14][15]
The practice has been outlawed in some places, including the city of Washington, D.C., where enforcement is strict and violators are ticketed.[16] Some places specifically prohibit the practice, with levels of enforcement that vary. Sanctions against violators may include fines and confiscation of the markers. Other places either do not enforce or make legal allowances for this activity.
In Baltimore, after the First and Second blizzards of 2010, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake announced that the city would not enforce an existing ban on the practice. She said that it could not be stopped, just like "people saying hon" could not be stopped.[17]
Some places, including Pittsburgh, do not place legal sanctions against those engaging in the practice, but make clear that anyone has the right to claim an informal space that was reserved by someone else for their own vehicle, regardless of courtesy. However, it is a general practice around the city to respect the markers of others.[18]
In Boston, the law permits residents to reserve spaces for up to 48 hours.[19] In 2007, the city confiscated the markers from 220 spaces where the residents had exceeded this limit.[7]
In Aldan, Pennsylvania, the police chief confiscated all markers that were placed following the blizzards of 2010. He stated that he was enforcing a local ordinance in doing so.[20]
Despite long-standing community traditions surrounding parking chairs, many people argue from a variety of perspectives that the practice is incompatible with maintaining a civil and orderly urban environment. Some commonly promoted arguments against the use of parking chairs are as follows:
Most dense residential urban streets have fewer parking spaces than residents owning vehicles. Despite this, it is rare that all residents require a parking space at the same time. When residents use parking chairs or other markers to claim spaces, they effectively reduce the parking available to everyone, by removing the efficiency that first-come-first-serve public parking normally provides.[21] Furthermore, guest and work vehicles are prevented from using available spaces when needed, without fear of retribution.
Even in cities, such as Pittsburgh, where parking chairs are generally tolerated, local police make it clear that public street parking cannot legally be reserved. Citizens are explicitly discouraged from using objects to block parking spaces. Because parking chairs are considered abandoned furniture, they may be removed at any time.[22]
Parking chairs have a strong negative aesthetic value that detracts from the appearance of a neighborhood and makes guests feel uncomfortable by the territorial notion that they represent.
In cities where parking chairs are commonly used, the respect of informally marked parking spaces is driven predominantly by fear of retribution, rather than commonly-alleged courtesy towards neighbors. This private enforcement of informal rules is a form of vigilantism, which is considered inappropriate in a civil society.[23] The act of vandalizing a vehicle or other private property, is of course both unethical and a criminal offense in most jurisdictions.
City police departments respond to countless complaints regarding fights which break out between neighbors, as a result of disagreements over parking chair usage. Because those who ignore parking chair traditions are legally in the right, police officers can do nothing but tell the offended party to leave the scene. This lack of resolution tends to both promote a sense that vigilantism is an acceptable alternative and often irreparably damages relationships between neighbors.
In cities where informal parking markers are prohibited, residents are more likely to help each other to effectively clear streets and dig out from a heavy snowfall. Parking chairs tend rather to disincentivize such behavior, given that a space can be informally reserved at the exclusion of ones neighbors. Residents acting selfishly are also more likely to shovel snow into other potential parking spaces rather than away from the street, creating large snow mounds which create limited parking situations to begin with. City snow removal vehicles must also frequently remove chairs before plowing, which reduces their effectiveness at street clearing.
During snow emergencies, it is common for two-lane streets to be effectively reduced to one lane due to snow banks created by plowing. Vehicles navigating such streets must frequently pull into a parking space to let vehicles driving in the opposite direction to pass. Parking chairs inhibit this necessary behavior, requiring drivers to leave their vehicles, possibly during icy conditions, to move chairs first.
The use of parking chairs in any manner besides casual courtesy, is a form of illegally claiming public property as private. During snow emergencies, the rationale of those who place chairs is that the act of clearing snow from a parking space entitles them to the private use of that space while the snow remains. While a similar argument is sometimes made in property law theory for improvement to unclaimed property, such as wilderness land, it is said not hold to in this case because city streets, much like parks, are a public property intended for protected, non-exclusive use by citizens. Furthermore, Lockean property assignment rights are based upon the assumption of a "state of nature" wherein land claimed by physical improvement has no intrinsic value and is not scarce.