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Many Angry About Larger Street Sweeping Fine

DENVER (CBS4) - It's less than two weeks into Denver's street sweeping season and residents are flooding one city councilman's office with complaints because the fine for this year went up.

The fine used to be $25 for parking on a street sweeping day, but this street sweeping season it's doubled.

Patric Levang forgot his car was parked in a street sweeping zone.

"I pulled out the ticket, 50 dollars?" Levang said. "That's a week worth of groceries and a week worth of gas."

He wrote to Denver city councilman Charlie Brown, one of many in his district upset about the new fine.

"They think $50 is too much," Brown said.

Every street sweeping sign states it's a tow away zone, which since 2008 is a $50 fine. But only the $25 no parking portion had been enforced until now.

"It was brought to our new manager's attention and he said we should be doing it correctly," Christine Downs with Denver Public Works said.

"That's bureaucracy; just tell me that the fines are going to be doubled," Brown said.

There's no denying street sweeping is necessary.

"They remove a lot of debris from our streets and we have to do that," Brown said. "We want a clean city."

But Brown says residents should have been better informed the fine would be more.

"We try to set up ways for people to remember ... hopefully move their car on street sweeping day," Downs said.

Sign up to get e-mail reminders about street sweeping on your block at keepitcleandenver.org.

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