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My street, although residential, is like most in a big city and still has a few small businesses that operate on it. One of these businesses is a nasty germ infested day-care. (Actually it might be quite lovely but you'll see where I'm going with this.) It is the type of day-care that calls themself a pre-school but I've met the parents of some of these snot-noses and let me tell you....it isn't a preschool. It is a daycare that holds the children of Satan. 

In front of the daycare (and rather close to my house & quite a few other residential buildings) is a loading zone. Specifically the sign says LOADING ZONE, M-F: 7:00 AM to 6:00 PM. This of course would imply that during those hours anyone could stop their car, throw on the hazards and load or unload something. Something being children, groceries, a piece of furniture, whatever. Right? Wrong. 

Apparently the daycare applied for the loading zone.  In the city of Chicago any business can apply for a loading zone near their place of business to help their customers out. And of course the business pays for that application. 

Apparently the owner/manager of the daycare has informed all of the parents that they OWN the loading zone. Somehow a private business can just own a stretch of city curb. Who knew? 

And so if a resident of any nearby building pulls in during peak daycare hours, they receive harassment & ridicule from the parents. The parents pull up close to the car and yell. They accuse you of hating children and hoping that a child is run over by one of the cars zooming by. They use obscenities and get downright ugly. They inform you the daycare OWNS THAT LOADING ZONE AND WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?!?! All in loud screechy voices ( in front of the darling children) and then you are subjected to group ridicule and stares by all of the parents as they come out, silently accusing you of HATING THE PRECIOUS BABIES IN THE NAME OF GETTING YOUR MILK IN BEFORE IT GETS WARM. 

I should mention that directly across the tiny one-way residential street is a second loading zone (actually it is a 15 minute standing zone, but uh, same difference) and then there are also EIGHT-  count them EIGHT - meter spots about 15 feet away. The daycare parents do not read any of the signs or rules applying to these spots or the nearby alley (that is clearly a NO STOPPING, PARKING or STANDING zone) and pull in. Double parking, triple parking, not paying the meter, loading kids in and out of the car from the street and completely stopping the flow of traffic. 

I'd perhaps buy into their "this spot is the safest for the kids" routine except all 40 parents cannot  fit into that one special spot so they take whatever they can and load from wherever. They often block traffic for 5-10 minutes while they allow their Precious Snowflake to walk across the street verrrrry slowwwly and then open their car doors wide into traffic. Of course with all the other spots, I will try to pull into one of them when I have to load or unload but sometimes, shockingly, they are all full of loading & unloading parents/children and the only spot left is the one right in front of the daycare. And also, as luck would have it,  right next to AN ENTRANCE TO MY BUILDING. 

I once nastily informed one of the Mothers that she was dead wrong about her lovely daycare owning the loading zone and when she started to give me an attitude I roared at her "I'M AN ATTORNEY AND TRUST ME I UNDERSTAND HOW TO READ A PARKING SIGN AND LADY? THIS ZONE ISN'T OWNED BY ANYONE EXCEPT THE CITY. " Which in retrospect brought me down to the nasty, irate level those parents seem to operate on, but in all honesty, what's a poor girl to do? Then of course, I moved the car into another recently opened spot because car/parent number two was circling in on me and I wasn't in the mood to deal with them. 

I've contacted my Alderman and explained the problem. BISMOW is contacting a friend who is an attorney for the city/consumer protection. I'm not sure what the next step is. A letter to the daycare? Flyers posted everywhere? I'm appalled that a business thinks they can OWN a loading zone and asks their customers to help them "enforce" it. I am sick of being screamed at while I unload groceries. I'm sick of having to give up the spot to an irate and out of control parent and then haul my groceries two extra blocks into my building. I'm sick of being looked at like a child-hater. 

Advice? Ideas? Questions? Comments? Similar predicaments in which you used your charm and wit to tell the offending party to politely bugger off? 

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