Los Angeles has collected close to $1 million from parking tickets tied to street sweeping rules — including citations issued on days when sweepers apparently never came through.
A new analysis says the city kept ticketing drivers even though many neighborhoods no longer receive weekly street cleaning. Motorists were still charged $73 fines as if crews had serviced those blocks.
Over the last five years, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT) issued more than 12,500 citations described as potentially improper, bringing in about $910,000 from drivers, according to LA Material.
The report reviewed the city’s traffic citation records alongside official street sweeping schedules and route information, comparing dates, times and locations to identify what it characterized as invalid tickets.
The issue traces back in part to 2021 budget cuts, which reduced street cleaning to every other week across much of Los Angeles. Thousands of curbside signs, however, still warn drivers that parking is prohibited every week for street sweeping.
In most neighborhoods, sweepers operate either during the first and third weeks of the month or during the second and fourth weeks, rather than on a weekly basis.
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Under the city’s “off week” policy, drivers are not supposed to be ticketed during weeks when no street sweeping is scheduled.
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“LADOT follows the Bureau of Street Services (BSS) street sweeping schedule, available at [streets.lacity.gov], and does not issue citations when BSS cancels or does not schedule service,” the department said in a statement to the LA Times.
“While LADOT’s parking enforcement officers receive biweekly schedules and assigned routes, discrepancies can occur when scheduled routes are canceled without prior notice.”
“LADOT prepares a bi-weekly street sweeping citation cancellation list to identify and cancel citations issued in error,” it added.
The city has promised that if a “citation has already been paid, LADOT’s Parking Violations Bureau contacts the recipient by mail with instructions on how to request reimbursement,” per the statement.
When pressed by LA Material about the reportedly erroneous tickets, LA DOT said that it “proactively dismisses any street sweeping issues issued in error” and “sends instructions for reimbursement to motorists who have already provided payment.”
The report noted the department did not provide them with examples of how many times so-called bad tickets were canceled or those who paid them mistakenly, were reimbursed.
LADOT told the outlet the number of mistakenly issued tickets are on the decline, pointing to some 2,000 bad tickets issued in 2025, voiding the “vast majority” of them.
The California Post reached out to the city for further information.
