Parking Ticket Infuriates Disabled Veteran

SPRING HILL - Don Sloane has put up with a lot in his lifetime.

Born and raised in Boston's gritty south side, he volunteered to fight in Vietnam with the U.S. Army as a way to give back to his country.

Happenstance put his battalion in the Vietcong's crosshairs and he earned his prized Combat Infantryman Badge for three months in "fast and furious" battle.

Sloan, 61, came home to what he labels "the vacuum." No one wanted to talk about the war or hear the conditions that he went through.

The respect and praise heaped on veterans of World War II and Korea were never his to share, Sloan said.

So he slogged through life, trying to make ends meet as a sign erector and social worker. Later he developed Type II diabetes, presumably from the defoliant Agent Orange, and was diagnosed "100 percent disabled" by post-traumatic stress disorder.

He waded through what he calls the bureaucracy of the Veterans Affairs system to get treatment that now includes a daily regimen of 18 medications.

Up until this point, he bottled his troubled thoughts inside and limited his griping to close family and friends.

But a piece of paper pushed him over the tipping point on March 6.

That's the day he went to the out-patient Veterans Affairs clinic on Cortez Boulevard, near the Suncoast Parkway, for his medication. Diabetes has limited his walking ability, so Sloane relies on a wheelchair for traveling beyond 20 paces.

But all seven of the handicapped spots on the east side of the clinic were taken that day, so Sloane parked in the white-striped zone directly outside the door. There is no sign that states "No Parking."

When he returned 30 to 45 minutes later, a $100 yellow parking ticket was tucked under his windshield wiper.

That, Sloane says, was the straw that broke the camel's back.

When Sloane saw the officer writing a ticket for another vehicle parked in that spot a week later, he asked him,

"Don't you understand what you're doing? These are veterans, it's plain and simple."

But authorities don't see it like that.

The ticket is for a county code violation and is contested in the same manner as infractions such as watering grass on unassigned days.

But it's the sheriff's office that issues them.

On Friday, sheriff's spokeswoman Sgt. Donna Black said that striped area is to provide space for vans and small buses to unload wheelchairs. It's not a yellow-striped area, which is reserved for emergency vehicles.

The officers issuing the tickets do have the discretion of issuing a warning.

Karen Young, patient support assistant at the clinic, said it's up to the property owners to decide whether a "No Parking" sign is appropriate. But no one has requested one so far, she said.

Besides the seven handicapped spots on the east side of the building, there are three on the north side and three on the west side. Sloane says that's too far for many of the veterans to walk.

Sloane is prepared to fight his ticket in court during a hearing before a magistrate in two weeks.