In our currently unstable economy, people are having difficulty affording things like groceries, luxuries, and apparently vehicle city stickers.
Through the end of last month, investigators for the city clerk's office issued more than 46,500 tickets to vehicles that either had an expired city sticker or didn't have one at all. That's an 8-percent increase from the same period a year ago.
City stickers cost $75 for passenger vehicles, $30 for those belonging to senior citizens. The fee for SUVs increased from $90 to $120 this year.
All of the tickets were issued to cars parked on city streets. Later this winter, investigators will start checking the windshields of cars in city-licensed parking garages.
"We have a limited pool of investigators. There's higher success rates on the street, so we spend most of our time there. When it becomes extremely cold in January and February, we move into the garages," Deputy Clerk Jay Rowell told the Sun-Times.