Unfortunately, people have bought into the idea that enforcing laws which are disproportionately broken by the socially disadvantaged is tantamount to oppression. Vandalism and property crime tends to be committed by the poor underclass, often by racial minorities to boot. So people don't want to enforce laws against those people, whose lives are already kinda crap, because they think it's just oppressing them further. Unfortunately, while this thinking is well-intentioned it has really cost society in general dearly.

Uh... I don't think so. These laws have been in place for decades, and are a way of preventing vandalism to property meters.

We don't yet have a surveillance state capable of observing every time someone puts gum in a parking meter while pretending to pay it, so they can park for free, it's not that we are "allergic" to enforcing this so choose to prevent parking at vandalized meters instead, it's that it's not realistic to catch that. Although I guess we're getting closer to that surveillance state now, but certainly weren't when these laws were first implemented, their motivation was that it was not feasible to catch most people vandalizing parking meters, instead the reward for doing so had to be removed (which honestly seems a lot more effective anyway??)