OUR VIEW: The nitpicky student well within rights

Here we go again.

Last year former student body president Quinn Millet’s booting case went to court on the grounds that booting bypasses the due process of law, and was met with a big, fat, “No way, kid.”

Now someone’s at it again, trying to find a way to get at the booting companies that are so often a pain in students’ butts. Last Wednesday, a group of three students set up a sting operation – of sorts – in which they parked cars in lots that were inappropriately marked according to current city code. They parked six cars without permits and coughed up $70 a piece for the three cars that were booted.

The owner of Cache Auto Booting was quoted in today’s paper as saying, “When students get booted because they trespass, they want to figure out how to get around the law. They can’t fight it in court because Quinn Millet lost that one, so they nitpick with the signs.”

Well, yeah. That’s the democratic process. If a group of citizens doesn’t like a law for whatever reason – maybe they think it’s just wrong or it’s biased against a particular group or it’s seems too heavy – they have recourse with the law to argue for redress of grievances.

Students have complained for a long time that booting is too severe a punishment for parking in the wrong place. And now that the maximum booting fee is $70. It’s a penalty that’s getting even harder to tolerate. It’s students’ right to try to effect change.

It’s also the right of any citizen to make sure the law is being adhered to. So even if Brady Newswander’s complaints are “nit-picking,” he is well within reason to demand the signs be in compliance.

Adhering to the law works the other way too. This includes students obeying the law by not parking in lots marked as permit only. Regardless of what students may think of the lack of parking spots available, the owner of the parking lot wanted spaces for their tenants. But in order for students to comply with parking lot restrictions, they need to clearly be able to see signs to know where they can and cannot park.

Even the owner of Cache Auto Booting seems to have recognized this, as less than a week after the students’ sting operation he replaced all the errant signs. He did that in less than a week, even though he had since last May to do so legally.

Even the original code, which was changed in May, required reflective background, though the definition of reflective background could be disputed. Logan City Prosecuting Attorney Lee Edwards said that would have to be determined by a judge.

So maybe it is nitpicking, but that’s what’s required to make sure everyone is on the same page. To be booted just because you couldn’t see a sign in the dark simply enrages the booted and enriches the booters. The law needs to be fair on both sides. After all, justice is blind.