Do you respect chairs?

amother

Blonde

Fri, Jan 29 2016, 11:40 am

Or crates, or garbage cans, or whatever else people put in spots they shovel their cars out of in big snowstorms to make sure they have somewhere to park, since snow takes up so many spots. Or do you think this is chutzpah, and you have just as much right to not walk a multiple blocks to work or school as the person has not to walk to their house?

Do you believe people have less of a right to chair a spot if they live near a public institution like a shul or a school? Would you move a chair and park so you don't have to be two or three blocks away from your work? When you leave would you put it back?

I live in a private home on the same street as a shul and a school. I have no driveway. I am trying to understand why people have been moving my chair on a daily basis, when there are chairs in spots all over town.

Chayalle

Fri, Jan 29 2016, 12:12 pm

amother wrote:

If you didn't buy the street, you don't own it. The fact that you don't have a driveway makes no difference - presumably when you bought your house you knew there was no driveway and you didn't pay for a driveway as part of your purchase, your loss. You have no "right" to put a chair there to reserve the spot. If you put one there, others have the choice to move it and park there.

I have never heard of a law making it illegal to move a chair out of a spot, so the people doing so are well within their rights. They have no obligation to move your chair back for you.

Rubber Ducky

Fri, Jan 29 2016, 2:07 pm

Digging out our 2 cars and clearing a path to the storm drain across the street (it's important for melting snow and ice to have somewhere to go) took us about 8 hours. Yes, I respect chairs. Fortunately, our parking spots are convenient only to our home.

seeker

Fri, Jan 29 2016, 2:28 pm

I really feel for people in Rubber Ducky's kind of situation but in a place like NY (I have no idea what other cities are like) where the parking-seeker has about a 0.002% chance of finding any spot within the entire city after a big snow, you really can't expect anyone to "respect your chair." You dug out your car presumably because you wanted to use your car. Now that you have used your car you are in the same situation as anyone else looking for a spot, regardless of where they dug their car out from. And why should "your" spot be off-limits to the entire world during the time that you're not in it? That's just selfish.

seeker

Fri, Jan 29 2016, 2:30 pm

However, while you can't expect anyone else to "respect your chair," I'm not opining on whether this is right or wrong but I have seen people reserve spots with other cars. for example if neighbor A has a driveway, is already dug out, and will not be using their car all day, and neighbor B has just dug their car out of a prime parking spot, neighbor B can ask neighbor A to park their car in that spot until neighbor B gets back home and needs the spot back. And because neighbor A is a nice person who will be home all day anyway and has their driveway to come back to, they happily oblige and everyone gets what they need except the random visitor to the neighborhood who still has no place to park their car.

watergirl

Fri, Jan 29 2016, 5:09 pm

You can be like me - our landlords live in our building. They park in a driveway elsewhere at night most nights so they werent parked during the storm. They and their kids have been taking "our" spots all week. But today takes the cake. She was parked, and in the car, occupying not one, but BOTH spaces that we spent hours digging out. I needed to park so I rolled down my window and asked her to move a few feet up or back to accomodate my car. After all, the space fit 2 cars. AND SHE SAID NO!!! She was waiting for her daughter to come out and didnt want her to have to walk in the snow. Ya know, cause she didnt shovel the sidewalk, and only made one thin path from the door to the street. I drove around the block 3 times looking for a space (I dont move peoples chairs! I'm a chicagoan!) and when I finally parked, she was still sitting in her car! I am so so mad.

the world's best mom

Sun, Jan 31 2016, 8:53 am

From the link that PinkFridge posted:

"It is also against the law to save a parking space anytime. This happens to be a choshen mishpat question. I heard a shiur from a well known rav who addressed this issue he explained since we all pay taxes and the streets belong to every one equally one has no right to reserve a spot. Digging out a parking spot doesn’t make it yours."

I don't think I would move a chair- if I were to drive- but I do think it's wrong to reserve a spot and not wrong for anyone to move the chair.

shoshanim999

Sun, Jan 31 2016, 9:51 am

Rubber Ducky wrote:

Cmon did it REALLY take you 8 hours to dig out? Is that an exaggeration? Are you saying the process started at 12 noon and finished around 8pm? Hard to believe. Did you guys use a regular shovel? Was it one of those little pail and shovels that kids take to the beach? Teenagers in my neighborhood upped their price from $25 to $50 to shovel because there was 2 feet of snow. I don't think it took more than 2 hours tops. Where did you carry the snow to? Did you shlep it all around the corner or something?

Notsobusy

Sun, Jan 31 2016, 10:01 am

shoshanim999 wrote:

I was talking to someone who lives in a big city and he told me that it took them so long to shovel because they have nowhere to put the snow. Living in suburbs with big lawns my whole life, I had never realized that would be a problem.

mommy3b2c

Sun, Jan 31 2016, 10:04 am

causemommysaid wrote:

I think that if someone spent time digging out their spot you should respect it.

Do you live in NY?

I have never heard of such a thing. And no, I would not respect anybody's chair. People don't own spots. Even if they du them out.

shoshanim999

Sun, Jan 31 2016, 10:07 am

Rubber Ducky wrote:

Rubber Ducky

Sun, Jan 31 2016, 10:19 am

I commend you for using your screen name on your snarky post instead of insulting me anonymously.

We had nearly 30 inches of snow here. The official area total was 29.2" at BWI. Shoveling took place over several days, and this combined hourly total includes work done by DH, me, and our married son who lives locally. Getting to the storm drain involved digging through an area where the snow plow had left a snow mountain — very deep and somewhat compacted. We were careful not to pile snow where it would make access more difficult for others. We made plenty of room around our cars and a wide path to our front door.

I do use a smaller shovel (a car snow shovel, still a lot bigger than a sand toy shovel) because I work more quickly that way and with less chance of injuring myself. DH uses a large shovel and still has a stiff back.

No doubt teenagers in great shape could have done the job more quickly, albeit less carefully.

shoshanim999

Sun, Jan 31 2016, 10:27 am

Ok, I didn't mean to insult you. Anonymous forums like this tends to lend itself to people exaggerating when trying to demonstrate their side of an argument. If you really spent 8 hrs digging out then I understand why you feel people "own" the spot they dug out. However, 99.99% of people spend considerably less time than that.

seeker

Sun, Jan 31 2016, 11:03 am

Though if anyone wants to nitpick about the time, it seems Rubber Ducky's 8 hours included two cars as well as her front walkway. So maybe more like 3 hours per car. But any way you cut it, digging out a car from a lot of snow is really really hard work. However, I still maintain that you dug out the CAR, not the spot. Presumably you wanted to take your car out or you wouldn't have had to dig anything. Now you have your car. So do about 10000 other people who likely dug their car out from somewhere and now need to park it.

amother

Mauve

Sun, Jan 31 2016, 1:37 pm

I actually discussed this on fb, bec my daughter's EI therapist was extremely late trying to find parking without moving a chair. We lost a large part of her session. In the end, dh pulled his car out of the driveway and she parked there. We had to shovel a driveway and the sidewalk, so it was also not easy. (Especially since a rude neighbor threw his snow onto our part of the sidewalk.)
The chairs in front of my house should not be there , since they don't even live in my house! No idea where they live, nor why they park there.
So no, I don't think you can nor should save spots.