LITITZ, Pa. — Parking tickets are usually an inconvenience and not a whole lot of fun to pay. However, someone in Lititz recently made some noise by paying a ticket to the jingle of 150 dimes.
"We get people paying [in] change," Lititz Borough Police Detective Sergeant Stephen Detz said. "Not regularly, but it happens quite often."
Sgt. Detz says someone did not pay their meter in early January. They ended up paying their ticket in dimes, but the way in which the person went about it was unorthodox.
"We got this delivery in the mail, this parking ticket that had 13 stamps on it, which was unusual," Sgt. Detz said. "And then when it was opened, it contained all these dimes."
The department shared a video on Facebook, which quickly went viral.
"I thought it was funny, the amount of stamps," Sgt. Detz said. So, [we] decided to put a little post on Facebook and the Internet took away with it."
Detz explained that with the cost of the stamps, the move didn't make much sense financially. Here’s the math.
The ticket cost $15. The 13 stamps cost $0.60 each or $7.80 altogether. In the end, the person paid grand total paid $22.80.
Detz said the comments to the post, which as of 9 p.m. on Jan. 20 has more than 2,200 views, nearly 500 comments, and 800 shares, were just as funny.
"There was too many to keep up with," Detz. said. "Somebody in San Francisco said 'Holy cow were your parking tickets on sale?' because they thought $15 for a parking ticket was cheap."
As to who the sender is, Sergeant Detz says the department usually only identifies parking offenders who have not paid and this was all in good fun.
"It was just kind of a jab that they gave us and then we gave one back kind of thing because we like to have fun," Detz said.
With all the buzz, the department is prepared.
"We're probably going to get some more change now."