Halifax's winter parking ban was only in effect for one day when complaints began to flood in Monday from irate residents.

Northwest Arm-South End Coun. Sue Uteck's phone started ringing at 6:30 a.m. Monday, just hours after the annual winter parking ban went into effect.

By the end of the day, Uteck said, she had received complaints from 15 constituents whose cars had been ticketed on the very first night of the parking ban. The parking penalty is now $50, up from $25 last winter.

Uteck said this wasn't supposed to happen during mild weather with no snow on the ground. After all the complaints last year, she said, parking officials promised a more common sense approach this year.

"I wrote to the head of the traffic authority and said, 'You came and told us you are implementing this ban. We pleaded for common sense, you said common sense was going to happen,"" Uteck said Monday.

"Here today we had eight degrees [Celsius]. So, to me, stupidity knows no bounds. That was an absolute cash grab on the backs of Halifax residents."

Uteck said the city is working hard to try to convince more people to move downtown, but a heavy handed approach to winter parking - and the $50 ticket that goes with it - will only drive people away.

The parking ban imposed by the Halifax Regional Municipality's traffic authority, whose powers come from provincial legislation, prohibits parking between 1 a.m. and 7 a.m. in all weather conditions over the winter.

Last winter, the parking authority handed out 17,468 tickets to people caught parking on the street. At $25 a ticket, that worked out to $436,700.