A few months ago I got the most bogus parking ticket ever - for parking incorrectly in a parking lot while I was buying some Japanese essentials at SANKO at Queen and Claremont. The cop was just wedging the ticket underneath my wipers when I came out of the store and asked him what was going on.

Apparently I was too close to the sidewalk, but whoever heard of getting a parking ticket in a PARKING LOT? He realized he just quadrupled my grocery bill but said there was nothing he could do about it since he issued the ticket - but he advised me to fight it down at Metro Hall and that they'd cancel it if I told them I was inside buying groceries.

I had something like 15 days to log my intention not to pay it and sure enough I didn't find the time to get down there to register my case. So there went 50 bucks.

I'm not alone in my frustrations.

But now, thanks to a new site called parkingtickets.to this will never happen to me again. The site allows anyone to fight their parking tickets online for the small fee of $5 - a steal considering the time and effort (not to mention possible TTC fare or parking) involved up until now to request a court date in person.

The site just launched and is short on details about how this all works but basically you enter your infraction number, license plate and pay the $5 plus tax ($5.65) and the site will request a court date on your behalf.

I only wish they could also guarantee the charges be dropped.

UPDATE: I just spoke with owner Greg Kasparian (who also owns EcoCut). He explained to me that how this works is once or twice a week he will be taking all the infraction number/license plate combos down to Metro Hall and file them. In so doing, he also submits all the related address info so the city is able to follow up with any of the site's customers directly with a mailed letter with a confirmed court date. Kasparian says this is all legal and he simply acts as an "agent" as permitted by the city.