{"id":191045,"date":"2026-03-14T03:11:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T03:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/191045\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T03:11:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T03:11:07","slug":"beach-parking-ticket-sparks-federal-lawsuit-against-south-florida-cities-apps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/191045\/","title":{"rendered":"Beach parking ticket sparks federal lawsuit against South Florida cities, apps"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>RIVIERA BEACH, Fla. (CBS12)  \u2014 A day at the beach on<a href=\"https:\/\/www.visitflorida.com\/places-to-go\/southeast\/singer-island\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"> Singer Island<\/a> ended with a parking ticket for Kerry Lutz, and now he is taking his fight over parking enforcement to federal court against several South Florida cities and major parking app companies.<\/p>\n<p>Lutz said he returned to his car after parking in his usual spot and found a ticket on his windshield. \u201cIt was just a shock to me, I kept thinking I must be wrong here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>See also: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sun-sentinel.com\/2026\/03\/13\/cap-out-of-state-enrollment-at-floridas-top-universities-senate-says-no\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Cap out-of-state enrollment at Florida\u2019s top universities? Senate says no<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Looking for a pay-to-park sign, Lutz said he found signage he believes is easy to miss and confusing.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Kerry Lutz says this parking sign on Singer Island helped create the case of his federal lawsuit. (Kerry Lutz){p}{\/p}\" class=\"ImageEmbed_image__qZBo_\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/818cd1a2-90d2-4734-86c7-31c603c0f57b-RIVIERABEACHPARKING.jpg\"\/>Kerry Lutz says this parking sign on Singer Island helped create the case of his federal lawsuit. (Kerry Lutz)<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI see a sign there, but it\u2019s got a QR code on it. That\u2019s not in the code. It\u2019s got a beachball, a beach umbrella, sand, and a wave. Which I realize the wave was for the wave of tsunami of tickets they were writing because nobody sees these signs,\u201d Lutz said.<\/p>\n<p>Lutz has filed a federal complaint against the Town of Palm Beach; the cities of West Palm Beach, Boca Raton, Riviera Beach, Delray Beach, and Fort Lauderdale; and parking technology companies ParkMobile, PayByPhone, and One Parking.<\/p>\n<p>The lawsuit claims the cities have pushed parking into app-only systems, leaving drivers with no real choice but to use private apps to pay for parking.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Parking signs around Palm Beach County. (Kerry Lutz){p}{\/p}{p}{\/p}\" class=\"ImageEmbed_image__qZBo_\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/f15be317-1609-4066-a030-1a4f883f9902-PPARKINGSIGNSLAWSUITsigns.jpg\"\/>Parking signs around Palm Beach County. (Kerry Lutz)<\/p>\n<p>Lutz\u2019s complaint makes two main arguments. First, he contends that signage in many places does not meet standards in the federal government\u2019s Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices.<\/p>\n<p>The law states that signs for parking must be on a white background with either red or green font. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cRed means no, green means yes,\u201d Lutz said.<\/p>\n<p>Lutz said the signs he photographed and included in his lawsuit do not warn about citations and instead only instruct drivers to pay to park.<\/p>\n<p>He also argues the signs can be hard to understand and sometimes contain mixed messaging.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Florida law specifically says unless a valid traffic control device is posted properly and is legible, no enforcement can be done,\u201d Lutz said.<\/p>\n<p>Second, Lutz argues drivers are being forced into private contracts in order to park, raising privacy concerns. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019re consenting to data sharing, effectively waving your privacy rights,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Lutz said his lawsuit is about more than a single ticket and that he plans to continue pressing the issue. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think when the court sees this, it&#8217;s going to be an eye opener,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The City of Boca Raton and the app PayByPhone said they cannot comment on pending litigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RIVIERA BEACH, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 A day at the beach on Singer Island ended with a parking ticket&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191046,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-191045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}