Chicago parking spot 'dibs' almost over

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Time's almost up if you are taking advantage of Chicago's ''dibs'' tradition.

Those chairs, tables and other things used to save a cleared parking spot need to be removed or they'll be hauled away.

The city warns that since the snow is melting, garbage collectors and other employees will start picking up the items Monday.

After a snowy week in Chicago, even as the city began to thaw, there was still plenty of slushy, frozen mess clogging Chicago streets to make some parking spots tricky to maneuver. As a result, cleared street space is precious real estate.

In Chicago, the legend goes, if you dig a space out you can call "dibs," planting your flag of choice on hard earned turf.

People will use just about anything to mark their parking spot. Chairs, buckets, tree planters and trash cans line neighborhood roads. Some dibs devices are hard to recognize as anything else.

For one West Town driver, a stick kept people at arm's length by leaning on another stick that's duct taped to a bucket of paint atop plastic drawers.

Down the block, a traffic cone stood guard. It was stamped "property of People's Gas," but tradition says the parking spot belongs to someone else.

For each dibs'd spot, many more people seem to have just given up on using their cars until the snow melts; several vehicles are still buried in untouched snow.

One West town resident decided to try her hand at the Chicago tradition for the first time Monday, using a broom and luggage stand to say dibs.

There are still holdouts, like Kayla Kennedy, who dug out her third spot in recent days Monday afternoon. She had a message for all Chicago drivers.

"If everyone took the time-everyone-to shovel out their car completely before they left, then the whole street would be clear," she suggested, pointing out that then there wouldn't be a need to reserve a spot.

But for now, we're left with a patchwork of semi-shoveled side streets and a showcase of temporary public artwork that goes by one name: dibs.

(Source: Sun-Times Media Wire - Copyright Chicago Sun-Times 2021.)

The video in the media player above was used in a previous report.