Expect harassment and threats if you lock up in front of Caravan Restaurant (4810 N. Broadway).

Yesterday, when visiting Crew next door, the nearest bike rack was full so I locked up to the city parking sign pole in front of Caravan. I'd barely stopped when a staff member started telling me that I couldn't lock up there because they were about to set up a valet parking sandwich board there. When I pointed out that the pole is city property, a public resource, and that locking bikes to such sign poles is explicitly permitted by municipal ordinance, this person claimed variously that "we pay for this sign" and thus that the restaurant had control over who used the pole and that the "loading zone" and "tow zone" signage on the pole meant that bikes could not park there. My partner entered the restaurant to speak to the manager, who also claimed that locking to the sign was illegal. They were dead set on tying their sandwich board to the sign pole and absolutely would not consider any other part of the (rather broad) expanse of sidewalk in front of their business. (Incidentally, the sandwich board illegally advertised a higher parking fee than the fee listed on the city-issued valet parking sign on the sign pole.)

Eventually, the restaurant staff threatened to call the police, and I decided to get out ahead of this and called them myself. Disappointingly but unsurprisingly, the cops heavily pressured me to move my bike "to keep the peace," but I declined. (Few things make me angrier than when some selfish and antisocial person takes something that is a public resource for everyone and tries to co-opt it for their own exclusive use, and I was unwilling to reward such an attempt.)

Eventually they gave up and admitted to the restaurant staff that I was legally permitted to park my bike there. The restaurant set up its sandwich board a few feet away from its usual location, the sky did not fall, and I was able to watch the Shockers administer a well-deserved lesson in hubris to the Jayhawks in peace.