Danielle Steel’s ‘parking permit’ passion gets her in trouble

Romance novelist Danielle Steel is a woman of excess. She’s dashed off dozens of best sellers, married five times, produced nine childr...

Romance novelist Danielle Steel is a woman of excess. She’s dashed off dozens of best sellers, married five times, produced nine children. And she inhabits a sprawling compound that commands sweeping views of Alcatraz Island and the Golden Gate Bridge. It turns out she has an appetite for parking places, too.

The 54-year-old grand dame of pulp fiction has amassed 26 residential permits in her tony Pacific Heights neighbourhood — more than any San Franciscan, city officials say.

In a city where the number of cars dwarfs the number of parking spaces, where residents can circle for hours to find a spot, Steel’s penchant for parking permits has unleashed passions not normally associated with her 50-odd romance novels. There has not only been angry sniping from neighbours but miffed letters to the editor and a recent local newspaper headline that read: ‘‘Danielle’s Parking Orgy.’’

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Irked city officials on Thursday will consider limiting the number of parking permits to three per household.

Under present law, residents can buy an unlimited number of permits — at $27 per year each — that exempt them from the posted parking restrictions in many crowded neighbourhoods.

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