Chicago Residents Call Dibs on Dug-out Parking

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CHICAGO (AP) -A blizzard that dumped nearly 2 feet of snow has revived a longstanding Chicago tradition known as dibs, where residents use chairs and other objects to tell anyone who passes that someone has taken the trouble to dig out enough snow to park a car and that person expects the spot to remain available when the vehicle returns.

Its an unwritten rule of etiquette but actually the city has an ordinance covering dibs, and it's illegal.

The practice is so ingrained in the fabric of the city that almost immediately after the blizzard ended, the candidates running for mayor were asked where they stood on the practice. Three told the Chicago Sun-Times they were in favor of dibs, while one was noncommittal.

Even the city's top police officer sympathizes with those who do it.

Think about it, you spend a couple hours clearing a spot and somebody from another block takes it? Superintendent Jody Weis said Friday.

In the neighborhoods, residents said they expect drivers looking for a parking spot to follow the law of the street.

Jenny York, a 31-year-old physical therapist said when she lived in the city's Bucktown neighborhood, she cleared a spot near her house and then went to work. She didn't mark it, and when she drove home late one night it was taken, and the only spot she could find was one marked by a couple of chairs.Not wanting to walk a long way by herself in the dead of night, she moved the chairs, parked and went to bed.

``When I came out my tires were flat,'' York said. ``Somebody slashed them.''

York called the police, but she couldn't prove who did it, and the investigation began and ended with a report. Five hundred dollars later, she had new tires for her car and a new rule: ``I don't really move people's chairs anymore,' she said.

Robert Harrison, a 37-year-old musician, was digging out a spot for his car in front of his house, but he said he saw no reason to claim it with a piece of furniture. I will not barricade this off, Harrison said. This is how it is supposed to work: everybody shovels a spot out, everybody takes responsibility for one spot on the street.

Harrison said he feels so strongly about the issue that he was going to pass out fliers urging people to join his vision for a neighborhood in which everybody shovels one spot for each vehicle owned.

Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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