Man Receives Parking Ticket 38 Years After Offense: ‘City Officials Said It’s Legitimate’

An Ontario resident paid thirty-four point five dollars for a parking violation issued in nineteen eighty-seven, after receiving his first notice in January two thousand twenty-six.

A man in Ontario, Canada, has paid a parking ticket issued nearly four decades ago after receiving his first notice about it only in January two thousand twenty-six.

Ron Klika was informed that he had been fined twenty-four point five dollars for parking in the wrong place near a train station in Guelph, Ontario, on December seventh, nineteen eighty-seven.

With an additional late fee of ten dollars, he ultimately paid thirty-four point five dollars.

“I opened it and saw a parking ticket from Guelph.

It’s been a few years since I was in Guelph,” Klika said.

“Then I looked at the date of the offense and it said nineteen eighty-seven.”

Klika lived in Guelph during the nineteen eighties but now resides in Jasper, another city in Ontario.

He said he called city authorities after noticing the date on the letter.

“They said, ‘No, it’s legitimate and you owe us twenty-four point five dollars.’ So I paid,” he said with a laugh.

He added that he does not recall ever receiving the original ticket and that the issue never surfaced when renewing his license plates or driver’s license.

He speculated that the paper ticket may have fallen off his windshield or been lost.

He also noted that he had moved to Alberta for a period before returning to Ontario.

City officials said the unusually long delay in collecting the fine was partly due to changes in enforcement responsibility.

Amy Roche, manager of financial operations for legal and court services at the City of Guelph, explained that the province transferred responsibility for fine collection to municipalities in two thousand, and that “every effort is made to collect fines imposed by the court, regardless of the date they were issued.” Roche said that, generally, unpaid parking tickets prevent a driver from renewing license plates, though it is unclear why that did not occur in this case.

She added that approximately twelve million dollars in city-issued traffic fines remain unpaid and encouraged anyone with outstanding balances to settle them.

In a separate case in Switzerland, a Cypriot driver who parked with one wheel on the sidewalk in two thousand twenty-three was fined one hundred and twenty Swiss francs, roughly one hundred and twenty-six euros.

He refused to pay and took the matter to court.

After the court upheld the fine, he appealed to a higher court, lost again, and ultimately had to pay a far more substantial amount — three thousand nine hundred and ninety euros.