Mark Schnoll paid $30 a day to park his car at Chicago Midway International Airport and returned from a five-day trip to find a $60 ticket on the vehicle.

His offense: Not having a front license plate. This didn't sit well with Schnoll, who promptly tore up the ticket.

"What in the hell right does the City of Chicago have to extort $60 out of me, which is what they're doing, that corrupt city," he told me.

But a notice of violation arrived in the mail a couple weeks later. It was, to quote the citation, photo enforced. "That means that a photograph was taken when the ticket was issued. Photos are taken as evidence that a violation occurred," it said.

Translation: We got you cold on this one. Resistance is futile. It's a foolproof revenue machine we have going here.

Right there were two photos snapped April 28, one showing his rear plate and the other his naked front bumper.

Schnoll admits he had no front plate. His argument is that it's none of Chicago's business.

"I sent a protest back by mail. My guess is they'll deny it, but I'm not paying for that ticket," said the Bayside man who works in commercial real estate.

He leased the car, a Mercedes E300, in October and says he was told by the local dealership that the front bumper didn't have a spot for the plate, but that Wisconsin doesn't insist on one there anyway.

That was incorrect, he has since learned. Wisconsin and Illinois both require front and rear plates on most vehicles. There are 19 states, including Michigan, that don't.

The Milwaukee Police Department and Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office both tell me they issue tickets for missing plates. The fine in Milwaukee County is a hefty $150.10 including court costs, according to sheriff's spokeswoman Fran McLaughlin.

"They don't target out-of-state violators, just violators," she said.

Someone in news affairs at the Chicago Police Department said it was "pretty ridiculous" that anyone would object to a ticket like this. She would not give me her name.

"We are supposed to have two license plates in the state of Illinois. We get tickets if we don't have two license plates in the state of Illinois," she said. "If the state doesn't require two plates, then you don't receive a ticket."

It's impossible to tell from the violation notice, she said, if it was issued by city police, revenue department or airport police. Lots of cops are watching plates down there.

Schnoll chose Midway because it offered a non-stop flight to South Carolina where he and a friend went to play golf.

Chicago wasn't done with him yet. After getting the ticket, he drove out of the airport but missed the turn for the highway to Wisconsin. So he pulled into the first driveway to turn around.

That happened to be a parking operation that required him to take a ticket to enter. He pulled the ticket and made an immediate U-turn to exit. He greeted the parking attendant.

"She goes, 'That will be $2.' I said, 'No, I just pulled in. It's not even one minute past.' She points to a sign and says 0-30 minutes is $2."

Schnoll resisted but then gave in and paid the fee. "I'm like, 'Just open the gate and let me out of this city,' " he said.

This isn't the first plate-related ticket Schnoll has received at a Chicago airport. A couple years ago, he left the family's vehicle at O'Hare during the exact time when the plates expired and needed a new sticker. Boom, he was slapped with a citation. He says he never paid it.

Schnoll best be careful when he returns to our neighboring state.

"I guarantee you," he said, "my license is going to be tagged somehow if I get stopped in Chicago."

Contact Jim Stingl at (414) 224-2017 or jstingl@jrn.com. Connect with my public page at Facebook.com/Journalist.Jim.Stingl