Pete Moye’
Opinion Button

Students who park off-campus and in the surrounding neighborhoods and businesses deserve to be towed and ticketed.

As the semester begins and the parking lots fill up, there are still those handful of students who purposefully break the rules and choose to park off campus because they are too cheap or lazy. The majority of us comply with the rules and pay to park on the school grounds.

It is part of college life and is not unique to Cerritos College.

It burdens the businesses surrounding the campus. Less parking for their clientele means businesses lose sales and for an employee a loss of sales equals loss of hours which ultimately leads to a loss of income.

There is one type of business that profits from students illegally parking in the areas around campus, and that is the towing business.

Thirty dollars for a school parking permit is an insignificant amount compared to the hefty fees of having your car towed and impounded.

It can be difficult to find parking within the first rows of the school’s parking lot, but it is guaranteed there will be spots available toward the middle and end of the lots.

The point is, there is parking on campus.

For others, the distance from one end of the parking lot to their building is too far. Regardless, walking is not going to be avoided.

It is much safer to park on campus because crossing major streets and intersections is not necessary.

The school also loses out on the money from the students who do not pay for parking, further contributing to the school’s lack of funds.

Every semester, the school pays to have the permits made and most of them are sold, but for the students who avoid paying for the permit the school cannot use that money resulting in fees being increased in other areas.

For the residents, it is a nuisance to have their streets congested with traffic from students looking for parking. It creates tension between the home owners and the college community.

Parking off campus needs to stop because any personal benefit from doing so is minute in contrast to the negative consequences.

Carpooling with friends and classmates and sharing the parking fee is a better alternative than to just avoid the fee altogether.

Being a productive student means being courteous to the other students, even if it is just by having to endure the same inconveniences.