TRENTON -- Visitors to Point Pleasant Beach who got ticketed for not having their parking receipt slip on the driver's side dashboard of their car before 2013 aren't due any refunds, a state appeals court ruled Tuesday.
Kevin Walsh succeeded in getting a parking ticket thrown out as it applied to him, but that doesn't apply to the potentially thousands of other visitors who were ticketed for not displaying their parking receipt properly in their cars, the three-judge panel said.
The court said Walsh shouldn't have been convicted of a parking violation in the popular resort town in 2013 because he wasn't given due notice of the parking ordinance's requirements but the court wouldn't go as far as declaring the ordinance unconstitutional.
Walsh, executive director of the Fair Share Housing Center, was visiting Point Pleasant Beach with his family on Aug. 4, 2013, when he was issued the $48 parking ticket at the center of the court case.
Walsh objected to the violation, claiming the signs at the parking lot and on the automated machine and the instructions on the receipt didn't accurately reflect the requirements in the borough's parking ordinance.
The ordinance declared that visitors are required to display the receipt on the driver's side dashboard of the car. But the signs at the parking lot and on the machine as well as the wording on the receipt omitted the words "driver's side" and simply instructed patrons to place the receipt on the dashboard.
Walsh pleaded guilty in municipal court but conditioned it on a higher court's decision. By going to the Superior Court in 2014, he sought a broader ruling that would declare that parking ordinance unconstitutional and invalidate the convictions of the potentially thousands of people convicted under that ordinance before him.
But the Superior Court judge and appellate judges Joseph Yannotti, Douglas Fasciale and Robert Gilson said the ruling only applies to Walsh.
The appellate ruling said the ordinance couldn't be declared unconstitutional because Walsh would have had to receive "due notice" about the requirements of the ordinance. But because of the conflicting wording, he did not officially receive notice of those ordinance requirements, the court said.
"Here, there is a narrow, non-constitutional resolution to defendant's alleged violation of the parking ordinance," the appellate court wrote in its 10-page decision.
Walsh said the ruling makes no sense and he plans to ask the state Supreme Court to take up the issue.
As a way to get easy money into their coffers, towns with questionable ordinances count on the reluctance of alleged violators to fight the tickets, he said.
He said that because the court and the town recognized the ordinance was unconstitutional as it applied to his case, the appellate court should have reached the same conclusion for others in the same situation.
"It seems to me the Appellate Division didn't appreciate the degree to which the town was running a scam," Walsh said.
The ruling declared as moot or lacking merit Walsh's claims that the ordinance violated the public trust doctrine, that it violates the New Jersey Civil Rights Act, that the municipal court judge should have recused himself because he is appointed by the borough council, and that the borough should pay attorney's fees and court costs.
The parking lot signs, the machines and the receipts all now instruct motorists to display the receipt on the driver's side of the dashboard.
Mayor Stephen Reid said he was pleased with the outcome.
"I'm happy they made the right decision there," he said. "I greatly appreciate it."
MaryAnn Spoto may be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @MaryAnnSpoto. Find NJ.com on Facebook.