He zips around in a Toronto police ticket mobile, whipping in and out at lightning speed to lay down the law with every bright yellow, you’ve-been-caught slip.
He roams downtown’s northwest neighbourhoods, hitting the hot-spots — coffee shops, grocery stores, restaurants — at the hot times — morning coffee run, lunch hour, afternoon drive-home — to maximize ticket distribution.
He is Zulfiqar Khimani, Toronto’s top parking enforcement officer.
According to data obtained by the Toronto Star, Khimani has issued more tickets than any other parking enforcement officer over the last five years. The hard figures:
• 97,265 tickets issued between January 2008 and August 2012.
• An average of 59 tickets a day, mostly to vehicles in Forest Hill and North Toronto neighbourhoods.
• A total of $3,922,725 in fines for drivers.
The diligent public servant is earning his keep: Khimani is one of two parking enforcement officers on Ontario’s 2011 Sunshine List, last year earning $101,467.12.
Only one other parking enforcement officer broke the 90,000-ticket mark in the nearly five-year period covered by the data.
That information, showing the number of tickets written per officer, listed employees by badge number. George Johnstone, operations supervisor with police parking enforcement, said he would not release the names of the officers for security reasons — despite the fact that officers’ last names and badge numbers appear on every ticket.
The Star confirmed Khimani’s name by finding a parking ticket with his name and badge number. A unit commander with the city’s parking enforcement declined a request to accompany Khimani on his route. Approached by a reporter while he was ticketing a truck on Hillsdale Ave. W., near Yonge and Eglinton, Khimani declined to comment.
“Not right now,” he said, shortly after writing a $40 ticket. “I am busy during rush hour.”
It’s always rush hour for Khimani. His secret, it seems, is simply outworking every other officer. Of the 1,649 days for which the Star received data, Khimani worked 1,473, or 89.3 per cent. That works out to more than a six-day week.
The second-ranked officer in the per-ticket count worked 81.9 per cent of the days, while No. 3 worked just 63.3. Khimani, in fact, is at his best on the weekend. When his tickets are broken down by days of the week, the data shows he’s written the most tickets on Saturday: over 17,000, or approximately 72 tickets a day.
It also shows even a keen officer can get a case of the Mondays — that’s Khimani’s slowest day at 11,000, or roughly 47 tickets a day. Khimani’s supervisor did not return calls from the Star asking about the officer’s work ethic and overtime.
Khimani’s days typically begin in Forest Hill. Spadina Rd. between Shorncliffe and Coulson Aves. is among his top places to ticket. The grocery store at 418 Spadina Rd. is the officer’s most-ticketed location, hit with 1,651 tickets since 2008 totalling $98,300.
Tzvika Snir, an owner of nearby What A Bagel, said it’s a hot spot for parking tickets, and people park without paying because they plan on making a quick stop. Some will be waiting in line for a bagel and bolt out the door when they see an officer. “They’ll drop everything, run across the street, almost get hit by a bus, and by the time they get there it’s too late,” he said. “They say (the parking enforcement officers) hide behind the bushes.”
Kevin Stott, an officer who also patrols Forest Hill, said he stays away from the area in the morning, knowing its Khimani’s turf until about noon. “We don’t compete or anything with tickets,” he said, but added that officers respect each other’s usual routes.
As keen as he is in Forest Hill, Khimani hits his stride between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m., his busiest period, according to his five-year average. He’s partial to ticketing the posh, mansion-filled Forest Hill Rd., and Eglinton Ave. W. from Yonge to just west of Avenue Rd. He finishes the day around 5 p.m. in North Toronto, zigzagging through the mostly residential streets of Hillsdale Ave. W., Colin Ave. and Duplex Ave.
By expertly plying his trade outside of the densely populated downtown core, Khimani is the exception to the rule. Typically, the top-ranked officers work in
the highest-ticketed neighbourhoods in the downtown core, such as the Bay St. corridor. Officers are usually kept in the same areas all the time, so they get to know what the problems are and how to solve them, Johnstone said.
Answering the oft-asked question of whether officers must meet a ticket quota, Johnstone said no, but that they do have to meet “performance standards” based on historical data for the area they patrol — “sort of a peer review, shall we say.”
The standard is determined by combining the last three years of parking ticket data for the area. If the historical data shows a drop in an area, then the standards would be adjusted.
“There’s nothing in our writings that say that they have to go and write so many tickets per day,” he said, adding that standards for the downtown are higher than standards for Scarborough because of traffic volume.
But officers’ performance is reviewed every 21 days. If they fail to meet the historical data, parking managers will review the officer actions, including the number of bylaws they’re enforcing.
“They do have to work, obviously. They can’t just come in and drive around,” he said.
Are officers taught how lenient to be? Johnstone said it is up to the officer at the time they’re issuing the ticket. An officer would never be told he or she was writing too many tickets, he said
