A new investigation has found that Los Angeles issued more than 12,500 street sweeping tickets on days when no street sweeping was scheduled, resulting in nearly $910,000 in erroneous fines since the city switched to biweekly street sweeping in 2021.

The investigation by L.A. Material compared more than 2.4 million parking citations with the city’s official street sweeping schedules. While the erroneous tickets were issued across LA, they were not evenly distributed, including within Mar Vista.

The publication’s map shows the largest concentrations of wrongful tickets in Zones 1 and 7 of Mar Vista. Zone 7 covers the southwest corner of the neighborhood south of Venice Blvd and east of Centinela, while Zone 1 includes the eastern section of Mar Vista, east of the 405 freeway in what is technically Palms. Both areas are denser than much of the rest of the neighborhood, with more apartment buildings, fewer single-family homes, and more residents who depend on limited street parking.

That pattern echoes one of the investigation’s broader findings. Citywide, the worst-hit areas tended to be dense, lower-income neighborhoods where a $73 ticket can have an outsized impact on household budgets. As one South Park resident told L.A. Material, “I can’t buy food if I have to pay a ticket.”

LADOT says it automatically cancels citations issued in error and contacts motorists who already paid to arrange refunds. But the department declined to release records showing how many of the tickets identified by reporters were actually voided or reimbursed, leaving unanswered questions about whether everyone who paid an erroneous ticket was made whole.