Glen Bolofsky may be able to help you if --
- The only parking you can find is on the sidewalk.
- Fire hydrants are your friend.
- City tow is on your speed dial.
- You exchange Christmas cards with the meter maid.
Bolofsky may be sitting behind a desk in Paramus, N.J., but he's costing San Francisco millions -- and proud of it.
His brainchild is parkingticket.com, a Web site that guarantees dismissal or reduction of parking tickets, or your money back.
For now, the site can only evaluate parking summonses issued in New York, Washington D.C., and San Francisco. But Bolofsky says the company hopes to add other cities soon.
If you get a parking ticket in San Francisco, New York, or Washington, D.C., you can type the information on the Web site, and Bolofsky may get you off the hook. He claims a 70 percent success rate.
Clients fight tickets without leaving their homes. They don't have to face a judge, and judges don't have to deal with irate citizens.
It's all taken care of via the information superhighway. Any goof on the ticket -- most often in the make of the car or the registration expiration date -- is enough to get it thrown out.
It's no wonder that Bolofsky is quickly becoming the scourge of budget bean counters.
"Judges love us," Bolofsky said. "Budgeters hate us."
Bolofsky, author of "Cheap Parking in New York City," began his crusade more than 20 years ago when he grew tired of moving his car on street cleaning days. He assembled a 10-person staff that includes a retired judge, police officer and parking agent.
Bolofsky has created business in San Francisco without any marketing or advertising push. Word of mouth and national media exposure in the Wall Street Journal and on MSNBC has been enough.
A representative from the City Treasurer's office said she was not aware of the Web site, and calls to the Department of Parking and Traffic were not returned.
If they're not aware yet, they soon will be.
San Francisco collects $3 million to $4 million per year on parking violations, and Bolofsky said he gets 1,000 tickets a week from The City.
If that's correct, San Francisco would lose $1 million annually, perhaps one-third of its projected collection. That's a lot of trees that won't get planted.
"We're absolutely in the business of depriving them from much-needed funding," he said.
The reason? If cities feel the pinch, they will do more to solve the parking crunch, or channel their priorities elsewhere.
"My goal is to put myself out of business," he said. "That's what I call a lifetime achievement."
