Parking a pickup truck in the driveway is against the law in swanky Flossmoor, and a resident truck owner unhappy with the restriction is making a federal case out of it.

Supporters of the ordinance, which banishes pickups to owners' garages, say the trucks are unsightly and don't belong out in plain sight in their upper-class south Chicago suburb.Jim Minx contends the village is snobby and its ordinance unconstitutional.

"If I pay taxes on my property, why can I not park my truck in my driveway?" asks Minx, whose lawsuit seeking to overturn the law is pending in U.S. District Court.

"It's just that they say that it creates a slum environment and gives the village a blue-collar image," Minx said Tuesday in a telephone interview.

Some folks don't have garages, he noted. He does, but there isn't room in it for his black Mazda pickup.

"People have been told . . . `Either sell your truck, sell your home, or park your truck outside town and walk back to your house,' " said Minx, a 30-year-old state law-enforcement officer who moved to Flossmoor a year ago.

"We feel it's a violation of civil rights," said Minx, whose Truck Owners Rights Association has 35 resident members.

The lawsuit, filed in March, argues that Minx' constitutional right to use his own property is being violated, according to Richard Hutchison, Minx' attorney. A judge is expected to rule Nov. 20 on the village's contention that the matter should really be decided in state courts, Hutchison said.

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At issue is a zoning ordinance in the largely residential village of 8,500 that says residents who own pickups must park them in the garage at all times, not in the driveway or in front of their homes.

Plumbers and other tradespeople may park commercial pickups temporarily in driveways of homes where they are working, but may not leave the same vehicles in their own driveways.

Offenders are ticketed $10 for each violation, and Minx says he owes $200 in fines on his truck.

The ordinance is an amended version - thanks largely to the efforts of Minx and 165 supporters who signed his petition - of a decades-old measure that said residents couldn't even keep trucks in their garages.

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