Monica Yant Kinney: Parking ticket office a surprise cakewalk

The doorman is a doll. He greets everyone with a booming "Good morning, sir" or "How are you today, ma'am?" He takes Spanish classes but laments that he can't say "Welcome!" in Vietnamese.

Regulars, who are legion, get pats on the back. They know to muffle phones and leave the coffee at home. No food, no exceptions.

Contrary to popular opinion, there is a public bathroom, and you don't have to donate a kidney to borrow the key. There is also a flat-screen TV on the wall with a picture so rich, it must be hi-def.

No one comes willingly, this being the Philadelphia Parking Authority's infamous Bureau of Administrative Adjudication (BAA) - "Ninth and Filbert" in shorthand. More than 200 people pour into the small space each day, most of us ticked off but destined to pay.

I arrive at 8:20 a.m. expecting hell on earth. I've heard the horror stories. I've written some of them.

But would you believe I was in and out in less time than it takes to watch an episode of Parking Wars? And that the ticket appeal process was so unexpectedly pleasant, so shockingly civilized, I actually hung around two more hours just to make sure I wasn't being punked?

I came as a civilian, a BAA virgin, Mrs. Kinney from Jersey gasping from the sucker punch of a $51 PPA violation at 10:17 a.m. one Saturday followed by a $76 ticket written by a police officer a half-hour later.

I made a stupid mistake leaving a Subaru in a SEPTA zone. But if murderers can't be tried twice for the same offense, neither should I.

Hearing examiners work for the city Finance Department, not the PPA. My judge and jury, Miss Barnes, has silk flowers and a Picasso print in her office. She displays snapshots of confusing parking signs on her bulletin board. Even first-nameless bureaucrats have a sense of humor.

Miss Barnes tells me I'm being taped, so I drone on, admitting half-guilt. I'll pay one ticket, I say, but two for the same offense seems unfair.

Miss Barnes scribbles in silence. She's not tyrannical, just efficient.

"Sign and date, one ticket dismissed," she says mechanically. "Have a nice day!"

Two minutes later, a cheery cashier happily accepts MasterCard and laughs deeply when I ask her why everyone's being so nice. Where are the hotheads and screaming matches? I was told there would be cursing and chair-throwing, not common sense prevailing.

The cashier hands me a receipt. "Have a good day!"

Joe Carney doesn't boot me when I sidle up to his station uninvited. He's too polite for that.

Carney worked for UPS before the PPA but likes this gig more - so much that he's stood in the doorway at Ninth and Filbert seven hours a day for the last six years.

Technically, his job is to check for weapons and usher aggrieved drivers through the metal detector and into the proper line.

I watch him pamper an 87-year-old and ask a twentysomething hipster about the filmmaking equipment jammed into his backpack. Carney may be a security guard, but he's also a goodwill ambassador for an agency drivers revile.

When a woman says she's come to pay one ticket and fight another, Carney calls it a "double bubble" and they both giggle.

The next offender has so many tickets he needs a payment plan. The guy after that got booted.

Few, if anyone, win, but no one yells or throws a punch.

Cathy Schlosberg fails in her quest to dismiss a $76 ticket she got in a snowbank on South Street, but she holds no grudge.

"My hearing examiner was lovely," shares Schlosberg, another first-timer, from Merion. "She took the time to explain why, without evidence, they have to take the word of the ticket-writer. Then she advised me to save every kiosk receipt and take a cell-phone picture every time I park, just in case."

Schlosberg thanks Carney. Everyone does. I shake my head in amazement. He says Drexel psychology students studying the parking-ticket appeal office visited and had the same baffled reaction.

A regular back for the second time in two days tells Carney, "You're such a nice guy," as she glumly exits the building after losing a fight over booting. What does she owe? I wonder.

"I don't ask," Carney says. "It makes me feel bad."