Gatto will be on with Tim Conway Jr. at 8 p.m. 

LOS ANGELES (CNS) - On the heels of a recent Los Angeles City Council  decision to ticket drivers who park at broken meters, Assemblyman Mike Gatto, D- Los Angeles, introduced a bill today that would block the city from enforcing  the fines.

Gatto's bill would enable drivers to park for free at broken meters for  the maximum time allowed. Assembly Bill 61 also would block local governments  from enacting ordinances that ban on-street parking at broken meters or kiosks.

``It's just wrong for cities to ticket people who want to park at a  meter that the city has failed to fix or to force a motorist to drive around or  park in a paid lot when a perfectly good spot on the street is available,''  Gatto said.

The bill aims to close a loophole in a law that took effect Jan. 1,  allowing parking at broken meters. That law kept the door open for  municipalities to decide whether to abide by the state law or to issue fines.

The City Council voted 12-1 on Dec. 5 to uphold a two-year policy to  ticket cars at broken meters. Los Angeles Department of Transportation Senior  Transportation Engineer Dan Mitchell told the council last month that new smart  meters in the city are rarely broken and are typically repaired within three to  four hours when they do go down.

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