People Outraged By ‘Insensitive’ Santa Monica Police Officer Issuing Parking Tickets During The Palisades Fire
On one hand it seems petty. On the other, relief workers need clear streets.
Karolis Kavolelis | Shutterstock Parking tickets are always annoying, but when they're given during a natural disaster like the Los Angeles wildfires, it seems downright petty and cruel. So, when a video showing precisely that went viral, the outrage was immediate.
The video showed Santa Monica, California authorities issuing a parking ticket during the Palisades fire.
As of this writing, the Palisades fire in the west Los Angeles neighborhood of Pacific Palisades has so far consumed 23,000 acres, an area more than 1.5 times the size of Manhattan. Due to hurricane-force winds, it has put normally safer areas like low-lying Santa Monica in its path, forcing partial evacuations of the oceanside city.
That has not stopped the Santa Monica Police Department's team of meter readers from issuing parking citations; however, as local video producer Suzi Mellano shared in a viral video posted to X.
"Jan 7, 2025, 3:15 p.m.," Mellano wrote in her post, "The world is literally burning around us and SMPD is still out here giving out street sweeping tickets. Classic Santa Monica." The video showed smoke billowing through the sky as a Santa Monica Police Department employee got out of their vehicle to place a ticket on a parked car.
The video left many people outraged given the circumstances.
In a statement to Storyful, Mellano put a finer point on the situation: "The SMPD was still issuing our weekly street sweeping tickets even though everyone was in fear of losing their homes." Thankfully, that has not yet happened in Santa Monica, but stronger Santa Ana winds in the forecast have the potential to change that.
Given the circumstances, Mellano's video left many people online outraged at what they saw as a petty, money-grubbing move by the city. Others characterized it as a silly misuse of resources.
"Seems like all resources should be devoted to assisting with the crisis … not sweeping the streets?" one X user wrote. "You'd think they would have people like him grabbing a fire hose, pruning dead trees, or something to help with this disaster," another added.
Others felt the outrage was misplaced given how abandoned cars have hampered firefighters' efforts.
Not everyone shared Mellano's anger, however. Some cited the terrifying problems that were caused in Pacific Palisades at the beginning of the fire when it roared downhill so fast that evacuees had to abandon their cars in the middle of streets and take off on foot.
Those cars then became barriers to firefighters attempting to advance toward the fireline. In some areas, bulldozers had to be used to shove abandoned cars out of the way. Even iconic 80s actor Steve Guttenberg joined the street-clearing effort at one point.
Others pointed out that the parking citations were for parking in areas slated for street cleaning, which certainly sounds petty at first blush. But as some pointed out, the accumulation of plant debris from palm and eucalyptus trees that often ends up in LA gutters can be highly flammable — a potentially dangerous situation with embers blowing around nearby.
In the end, it shows just how chaotic things have become in Los Angeles that it's hard to decipher whether business as usual is an important safety step or a callous act of pettiness. With more dangerous winds on the way, let alone the devastation, normalcy is sadly unlikely to return any time soon.
A list of organizations involved in relief efforts for the Los Angeles wildfires can be found here.
John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.