The city of St. Louis Park revised its parking restrictions making it no longer an automatic ban once 3 inches of snow has fallen, according to public works operations manager Jeff Stevens.

“This year, the parking ban still has the 3 inch trigger, but only goes into effect when there’s the need to have one. An example would be in April when we had 8 to 10 inches of snow last year, but it was going to be 50 three days later and it was all going to melt, do we really need to have a parking ban?” Stevens said.

Stevens said with all the ways to be notified about the weather, the best way to not get towed is to check the forecast.

“Pay attention to the weather. With today’s technology you should know there’s snow coming,” Stevens said. “We plow day or night, any time there’s 3 inches of snow.”

Senior Ian Schneider, who frequently parks on the street, said he believes it is helpful to be notified whether or not your car is going to get towed.

“I feel like it’s really useful, because parking on the street in front of your house and being towed for something that’s out of your control would be really frustrating,” Schneider said.

According to Stevens,  whether plowed in or towed, it is the resident’s responsibility.

“Plowed in, they have to shovel their car out. We encourage the residents to get their car off the street, to pull it up in a driveway or something like that,” Stevens said. “Once it’s towed, it’s towed to Bobby and Steve’s over in St. Louis Park off of Lynn Boulevard.”

Although the city of St. Louis Park has changed its policy, the high school continues with its regular parking policies, according to interim assistant principal Kari Schwietering.

“We’ll continue to monitor the parking lot as we always do to make sure that at any time, regardless of snow or not, that people with a permit are the only ones parking in the lot,” Schwietering said.