Name: Woman Sue's Florida Town After It Fined Her Over $100K for Parking Incorrectly in Her Own Driveway
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Woman Sue's Florida Town After It Fined Her Over $100K for Parking Incorrectly in Her Own Driveway

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AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementA South Florida woman is suing her community after she was fined more than $100,000 for, according to city officials, parking incorrectly in her own driveway over the course of a year.A woman named Sandy Martinez found herself the target of what appears to be a lazy and vicious campaign of harassment from local government officials in Lantana, Florida, after she attempted the impossible logistics of parking four cars at a house with a narrow driveway — and that’s a house which she actually owns.If you’ve ever had guests over to a home with a single-car driveway, you know it can be challenging to find a spot for that many vehicles. Martinez made it work for her and her family, but officials in the city had deemed the manner in which those cars were parked to be in violation of local codes.Advertisement - story continues belowThe reason: Some vehicles actually at times extended outward slightly touching either the front lawn while two others reached out into a walkway.An eyesore for bored neighbors? Maybe. A headache for a family with a multitude of drivers? Sure. But was it all illegal? Per Lantana officials in Palm Beach County — absolutely.Trending:Surely there’s never been a better case argued for than this one — even if you’re not a libertarian. This homeowner is now facing a financial catastrophe for how her family parked on its own property.According to , Martinez was fined $250 per day for parking infractions in her own driveway for a year, at a house she owns, and that’s not even the full scope of the insanity. The city of Lantana wants her to pay an additional $63,500 after cracks were discovered in her concrete driveway and a fence on her property was found to be damaged by a storm.Advertisement - story continues belowThe worst part: city officials apparently issued daily fines and never sent anyone out on a daily basis to even ensure she was even in violation of city codes. They simply assumed she was breaking local parking and property ordinances, and let the fines accrue from there.Those fines added up for a year, which has led to a total of more than $160,000 owed to the suburb — a sum that would bankrupt most families. Martinez told WPTV the fines are actually worth more than her home.Martinez and her lawyer, a man named Mike Greenberg, have teamed up with a legal libertarian nonprofit called the Institute for Justice to file a&nbsp;suit&nbsp;against the city over the .An attorney for the Institute for Justice named Ari Bargil is actually making the case that the fines were unconstitutional.Advertisement - story continues below“That’s really what this case is about is excessive fines,” the attorney said. “We are here in this driveway because of a $100,000 parking violation. And added on top of that are $65,000 in more fines for cosmetic violations that my client fixed years ago, for cracks in the driveway and for a broken fence after a storm.”Describing the situation for Martinez as “catastrophic,” Bargil stated: “The government doesn’t have the power to impose the financial death penalty for trivial violations.”Related:Greenberg, Martinez’s personal attorney, said that when his client was notified of her infractions, she immediately complied with the law. In what appears to be a miscarriage of justice in the community, nobody from the city ever came by to follow up. The city simply continued to let the fines mount.Martinez said she tried to get into contact with the city to put the situation to rest, but didn’t have any luck.Advertisement - story continues belowLantana agreed to reduce all those fines to $25,000, but Martinez had to pay that sum by the week before Christmas, which she was unable to do. Now, she’s stuck owing the full $160,000.She doesn’t seem intent on paying the fines, and she seems to have good council.Bargil said he is suing the city on the grounds that the fines violate Martinez’s rights.Advertisement - story continues below“We’re suing, asking the court to issue a declaratory judgment that says that the fines imposed against Sandy are unconstitutionally excessive because they’re grossly disproportionate to the offense,” he told WPTV. “We’re not asking for money. We’re fighting on principle on behalf of Sandy.”Hopefully, Martinez can get the situation resolved, and it sounds like she’s working to do just that. But if Lantana’s officials seem a tad bit irrational here, just remember that this is the same county where city officials once fined former President Donald Trump for displaying an American flag that was deemed too prominent on the landscape at his .Trump eventually beat his uptight neighbors. Perhaps Martinez, who is just minutes away, will have the same luck.Submit a Correction →We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism.Tags:, , , , , ,AdvertisementArmed with a scriptural understanding of God’s wrath, we can and should be working to chart a better course for our nation’s future.On a day the White House chose to celebrate the 'Inflation Reduction Act,' reality had a way of breaking up the party.State troopers and medical personnel rushed to the site of the head-on collision, but he was declared dead at the scene.Winfrey's calls for 'healing' rang hollow as a bell after she helped Prince Harry and Meghan Markle throw the royal family under the bus.Since Queen Elizabeth II died on Thursday, there have been multiple natural phenomena that some have interpreted as signs from God.During a procession of the Queen Elizabeth II's casket through Edinburgh, Scotland, Prince Andrew was heckled.'We’re exceedingly doubtful that the release of the Epstein records would "interfere with enforcement proceedings,"' Techno Fog said.Arizona's Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake has a plan for the state, which she has outlined in detail.A Texas teacher has been fired from the high school where she taught after she was outed on social media for discussing the concept of re-labeling pedophiles as “minor-attracted persons” […]Meghan Markle recieved a cold shoulder from Britons mourning Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle over the weekend.

AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementA South Florida woman is suing her community after she was fined more than $100,000 for, according to city officials, parking incorrectly in her own driveway over the course of a year.A woman named Sandy Martinez found herself the target of what appears to be a lazy and vicious campaign of harassment from local government officials in Lantana, Florida, after she attempted the impossible logistics of parking four cars at a house with a narrow driveway — and that’s a house which she actually owns.If you’ve ever had guests over to a home with...

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Woman Sue's Florida Town After It Fined Her Over $100K for Parking Incorrectly in Her Own Driveway

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