Mystery surrounds ‘illegal parking’ stickers on cars in Henderson

With many Las Vegas Valley residents staying home as nonessential businesses are closed, curbside parking in and around neighborhoods has gone up, causing issues for some homeowners and spawning a mystery in one Henderson subdivision.

Some residents of three gated neighborhoods in the Green Valley Ranch subdivision routinely park along Cozy Hill Circle when they have more vehicles than will fit in their driveways and garages.

Last week, white stickers appeared on windows of vehicles parked on Cozy Hill stating: “Parking violation. Vehicle subject to immediate removal. Unauthorized vehicles towed at owner’s expense.” The telephone number of the Henderson Police was printed at the bottom.

Though the sticker appears to be placed by the Henderson Police Department parking patrol, the department said it wasn’t aware such a sticker existed.

“The parking enforcement sticker you are inquiring about does not belong to the Henderson Police Department,” Henderson police spokeswoman Katrina Farrell said in an email. “We were unaware of the sticker’s existence; therefore permission was not provided for its use.”

The department’s parking enforcement officers are deemed essential and are operating during the shutdown of nonessential businesses, Farrell said, but there have been no enforcement actions taken in the area where the stickers appeared.

Terra West Management Services, which serves as Green Valley Ranch’s homeowners association, said it didn’t issue the warnings.

“We don’t put parking violation stickers on Cozy Hill because it’s a city-owned street,” said Kristina Pullen, administrative assistant and architectural coordinator for Terra West.

Terra West deals only with ungated communities in the area, where all the streets are considered city owned, so any parking enforcement on those streets would be done by the city’s parking enforcement team, Pullen said.

Could a resident fed up with cars parked on the street be to blame?

“Someone is obviously putting them on there that is a homeowner or something, because we can’t mark those,” Pullen said. “A lot of people do complain about them parking there, because that street, you can’t see that (well on) Cozy Hill.”

The three gated communities along that stretch of Cozy Hill are under the management of separate sub-homeowners associations, and they do mark vehicles parked on the street in the communities overnight. Pullen said she wasn’t aware if those companies were enforcing parking during the state shutdown.

Though the stickers were made without the police department’s approval, Farrell said placing them is not illegal unless the sticker caused noticeable damage to a vehicle.

“As far as what determines a crime would be any damage or loss sustained, like vandalism or injure/tamper motor vehicle,” she said.

Contact Mick Akers at makers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2920. Follow @mickakers on Twitter.