License plate reader enforcement in downtown

The Lee County Sheriff’s Office has begun using license plate readers to monitor parking violations in Boca Grande following the implementation of the new parking restrictions at the beginning of the year.

“The Lee County Sheriff’s Office uses a License Plate Recognition (LPR)-based parking system to enforce the three-hour parking restrictions in designated parking areas,” wrote Sarah Rodriquez with LCSO Public Affairs in an email to the Beacon. The system is fully operational and supports deputies in enforcing the posted time limits.”

The system went into effect in June, according to LCSO, and though there is no way to track whether tickets were issued based on the new LPR system, there were a total of 119 citations and 12 warnings in June. There were 94 parking citations and 12 warnings in July.

The brand of the system is Vigilant by Motorola Solutions, and two vehicles are outfitted with the readers, according to LCSO. Both cars have two cameras mounted on each side of the roof, said LCSO Lt. Mike Sawicki.

“It uses GPS positioning, so it records the plate, and as you go back around, if it records the plate again in the same location in three hours, it will notify the deputy,” Sawicki said.

Parking tickets are not autogenerated, he added, and the deputy has to verify the violation and issue the physical ticket themselves.

“It’s pretty straightforward,” he said. “It’s basically e-chalking. Instead of physically chalking a tire, it records the location.”

Several downtown spaces are privately owned, such as Gasparilla Island Conservation and Improvement Association spots that run along the bike path. These spots are outside of parking restrictions and therefore not enforced.

“The way it works, they create a geofence for the area where spaces are monitored so it’s only recording those tags for comparison,” Sawicki said.

Currently, deputies must manually identify each of the several permit tiers to determine whether a violation has occurred. Eventually, the permit levels will be entered into the Motorola system to automate the process, he said.

“As they go through renewals, tags will be entered into the system as ‘authorized vehicles,’ so it wouldn’t indicate a violation,” he said. “For now the deputy has to look and verify. That is one reason that tickets aren’t autogenerated.”