Park it like it’s hot: San Francisco man’s stolen car racks up tickets

Kristap Baltin, whose car was stolen Jan. 7 — and ticketed — looks over items he had left inside that were not touched. Kristap Baltin, whose car was stolen Jan. 7 — and ticketed — looks over items he had left inside that were not touched. Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 7 Caption Close Park it like it’s hot: San Francisco man’s stolen car racks up tickets 1 / 7 Back to Gallery

Kristap Baltin wiped the sleep from his eyes and walked to the intersection of 22nd and Alvarado streets in San Francisco, where the night prior he’d parked his white Mazda. Mental notes were running through his head in preparation for a morning meeting, but as he got closer to his spot his pace began to slow. He looked both ways and suddenly felt confused.

As if his mind were playing tricks on him, he replayed the night over and over until he realized he was in the right location. His car was not.

Baltin double-checked the street signs to note no street cleanings were scheduled. He then checked with the city’s impound facilities, which confirmed that the vehicle hadn’t been towed.

That’s when he knew: His car was stolen.

“I was very upset,” said Baltin, a 37-year-old restaurant server. “It’s super reliable. I never have to do a lot of maintenance with it. I maybe spend 400 bucks a year on it at the most. It’s such a trusty, loyal car.”

Baltin was in for an even bigger surprise four days later, when, on Jan. 11, he learned he had received two parking tickets. Against the odds — and city policy — parking enforcement failed to flag his stolen car while issuing the citations.

San Francisco’s Municipal Transportation Agency is supposed to have a system in place to alert parking enforcers through a handheld device when a ticketed car has been stolen, according to MTA spokesman Paul Rose.

“That means (the stolen car) wasn’t just missed once — it was missed twice,” Baltin said.

His experience isn’t an isolated incident.

The MTA issued 90 citations to stolen vehicles in San Francisco between Jan. 1, 2017, and Jan. 22 of this year, said Rose, who added a caveat that some of those vehicles might have been reported stolen outside of San Francisco County, eluding the MTA’s database.

Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle Kristap Baltin, who filed a police report after his car was stolen...

But of the 1.3 million parking citations MTA handed out over the last year, Baltin’s stolen car shouldn’t have been one of them, according to agency protocol. When he realized his car had been stolen, Baltin said, he went straight to the Mission Police Station and filed a police report.

As the days went on, Baltin said, he continued calling the Police Department for updates and to make sure police registered his car in the system. Police reassured him that his stolen car was registered, he said.

But there was no trace of the Mazda until Baltin logged on to the SFMTA website to pay for an old parking ticket and he found two new citations issued to his missing vehicle — one on Jan. 9 and another on Jan. 11. Both tickets were $84 each.

“That’s extremely frustrating,” Baltin said. “It should be one of their responsibilities to right away report a stolen vehicle. It’s absolutely inexcusable for them not to catch that.”

Parking Control officers use handheld devices that should immediately notify them when ticketing stolen vehicles, Rose said. The handheld devices are updated nightly through a direct transfer of information from San Francisco police that includes all recently processed stolen vehicles. Depending on when the vehicle was reported stolen, Rose said, it’s possible that the car doesn’t make the nightly upload.

But that still shouldn’t have affected Baltin’s case, according to tickets and paperwork reviewed by The Chronicle.

“The only delay would be if, for instance, we haven’t gotten the (police) report just yet,” said Officer Giselle Linnane, a spokeswoman for SFPD.

The confusion in Baltin’s case has raised concerns that there might be an error in the system.

In 2014, a similar situation occurred when The Chronicle learned that a 3-month computer glitch had resulted in stolen vehicles being improperly ticketed. A woman reported a scooter stolen from her Presidio Heights home, and a day later an MTA parking officer cited it without reporting the vehicle to police.

In Baltin’s case there is no computer glitch, Rose said. The spokesman did not provide an alternative explanation.

Baltin called the lack of answers on what went wrong “frustrating.”

On Jan. 15, police found his car near Ina Coolbrith Park at the intersection of Taylor and Vallejo streets, a little more than three miles from where it was stolen. The battery was dead, but otherwise the car was in good shape. His textbook on world literature and the sleeping bags he had stored inside were left untouched.

After getting his car back, Baltin said, he protested his parking tickets on the SFMTA website by uploading his police report and a vehicle recovery form issued by the Police Department, showing that the Mazda was not in his control when the tickets were issued.

Baltin said he expects his tickets to be expunged, but there has been no indication on how long it will take. He received confirmation that his protest was submitted and was told to look for a decision from the agency in the mail.

“What is the next step in fixing this issue, so it doesn’t happen again to other people?” Baltin said. “I don’t want other people to go through the same thing when their car is stolen and then their car gets a ticket afterwards.”

Sarah Ravani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SarRavani