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YouTube couple Squirmy and Grubs shared their experience with a parking rule that made getting out of their car impossible. Then, West Hollywood changed the rules.

Apr 7, 2023, 08:34 IST
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Shane and Hannah Burcaw on their podcast "Junkyard Mayhem."Squirmy and Grubs/YouTube
  • Shane and Hannah Burcaw received a parking ticket for $60 after backing into a space.
  • The couple complained about it to the parking enforcement office, but the appeal was denied.
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YouTubers Shane and Hannah Burcaw celebrated a change made by California parking officials after they were fined for parking the wrong way in a disabled spot.

In the latest episode of their podcast "Junkyard Mayhem," the couple spoke about their experience with a West Hollywood parking rule that prevented drivers from reversing into a spot — even in cases like theirs where doing so was essential.

The pair grew their YouTube channel Squirmy and Grubs to over a million subscribers with posts about their life as a couple in which one of them is disabled.

They spoke about getting the parking ticket in late March after meeting their agent for lunch in West Hollywood.

"If you're familiar with West Hollywood, there's nowhere to park," said Shane in the earlier post. Hannah noted that most spots don't work for them because their car needs three feet of clearance for Shane to get out with his wheelchair.

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The couple said they looked up a parking lot beforehand and found a single spot when they arrived.

It was on the wrong side for Shane's ramp, Hannah said, so she reversed in. They later spotted a sign that said "head in parking only."

"And I was like, well, first of all, why? Give me a good reason why because that doesn't make any sense," Hannah said. "Second of all, if we don't park this way, we are not going to lunch because there is literally no other accessible parking spot for us to use."

The couple decided to take the risk, but came back to a $60 fine with the note "failure to obey sign."

"It was the only accessible parking spot in a mile radius," Shane said. "It's not fair."

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Hannah took a photo of Shane in the area and wrote an appeal to the West Hollywood parking enforcement office. Five days later, it was denied.

"If I can't appeal the ticket, I would like to change the whole law," Hannah said, describing her reaction at the time. "Like, how can I get that sign removed is my question."

"We are willing to take this all the way to the Supreme Court if we need to," Shane said.

Two weeks later, Shane and Hannah posted an update, celebrating the rule change.

Hannah said one of their followers emailed a city councilmember in West Hollywood, who provided a response from the parking officials. They said the head-in rule was so "parking officers don't have to walk around the vehicle to check the plate number."

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Hannah called it "the most asinine reasoning behind that rule that I have ever heard."

"It was not a safety concern, it was so someone didn't have to walk five feet to scan the plate," she said.

The email also contained a solution: their situation made the city government realize there were "unintended repercussions," and commit to removing the signs from all of their parking lots in West Hollywood, they said.

"Every public parking lot in West Hollywood is now front in or back in parking," said Shane. "And I think that's amazing. What a big win for accessibility."

In a statement sent to Insider, an official with West Hollywood parking enforcement confirmed that a regulation change had happened for the parking spots, claiming that the head-in parking requirements existed "to facilitate the City's license plate recognition system used for parking enforcement."

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"These requirements had unintentional impacts for people requiring an additional level of vehicle access and for people in certain EVs (electric vehicles)," the statement said. "The City of West Hollywood is appreciative about the constructive feedback it received regarding these impacts. As a result, the City has responded by removing head-in parking requirements and related signage from parking lots in West Hollywood."

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