Meter Maids Sticking It to Residential Nabes
While overall crime rates continue to fall around the borough (even in North Brooklyn, where yesterday’s headlines focused on a rise in murders, saw 17 percent fewer robberies in the first 5 1/2 months of 2007), one threat to civilized society apparently continues to grow: scofflaw parkers. In Bay Ridge, parking violations were up 9…
While overall crime rates continue to fall around the borough (even in North Brooklyn, where yesterday’s headlines focused on a rise in murders, saw 17 percent fewer robberies in the first 5 1/2 months of 2007), one threat to civilized society apparently continues to grow: scofflaw parkers. In Bay Ridge, parking violations were up 9 percent through June 10; in Sunset Park and Windsor Terrace, 25.9 percent; in Red Hook, Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens, 4.3 percent; in Brooklyn Heights and DUMBO, 6.6 percent. “A 25% jump is quite a jump in this community, especially when we have to move cars four times a week for alternate-side parking,” said Jeremy Laufer, district manager of Community Board 7 in Sunset Park. So are people really violating parking laws more than in the past or are the police just thinking more like bank robbers? “Why do they come to Bay Ridge?” asked Bob Cassara, president of the Bay Ridge Community Council. “Because that’s where the money is, and there’s a lot of money in ticketing people.” Exactly: A nice fat middle-class tax hike.
Parking Tickets on the Rise [NY Daily News]
Murder Up in North Brooklyn, Down in South [Brownstoner]
A random semi-related topic…Street cleaning/alt side parking.
Why, when they rip up your street in preparation for relaying asphalt ohhh probably weeks later, and you know damn well no street cleaner is ever coming down your block until it’s relaid, do they still enforce alt side parking?
Tom Murphy you’re onto something but take it a step further.
Not only should there be an investigation BY the city council, there should be an investigation INTO the city council. Cops and others get their pockets lined by political leaders so they won’t give tickets in certain neighborhoods.
Along coney island ave and ave J, its been happening for years. Plenty of shoppers shop before sundown on friday with cars double parked and don’t get ticketed. Fair, unfair, this is politics.
“You break the law, you get a ticket. What is the problem here?”
No problem EXCEPT that I’ve had a number of fraudulent tickets issued by Parking Enforcement Agents wnen my car was legally parked. They’ve been dismissed, but what a PITA!
Their classic move is ticketing you then towing you soon after. In Boerum Hill I saw I had a ticket so I left the car in the spot for a few hours. When I came back, it had been towed. Now that’s something much worse than a ticket — you have to go to the Navy Yard, pay a bigger fee, and deal with the inept city bureaucracy.
The problem is that we have a mayor who financed his own campaign, who doesn’t give a shit what people think, and who gets driven around in a private car and a private jet. He’s a punitive SOB and what’s really weird is that many New Yorkers seem to like the strict Daddy routine.
There are enough violators driving (cell phone users, red light crashers) to substantiate any ticket “quotas”. Problem is, some cops and meter maids are reluctant to engage in a confrontation, so they wait til no one is around to leave their gifts. What the city needs is to train policemen to look out for more of these moving violations.
In Boerum Hill there are signs warning that honking will get you a $350 ticket–now THAT’S how the city should make money. Anyone think it’s possible to enforce? Do honking laws ever get enforced?
Some days ago the headline was how many tix were issued in Brooklyn Heights. But that wasn’t the real story. Look at who was next on the list: Kensington/Midwood.
You say payback to Vinnie Gentile, what about payback to Dov Hikind or Simcha Felder? What did they do? Does the Mayor know how his government works?
Certainly a 25% increase in Sunset Park deserves scrutiny. Who did we abuse?
Definitely the drivers/owners didn’t set out this year to violate the admin code five times for every four times they can remember from last year and get caught every time. This begs an investigation by the City Council at the least.
The NYPD spokesman who says there is NO crackdown and NO policy change must defend that statement. There is NO logic there.
Again, reading the full article, it states only precinct-issued totals were counted and NOT Traffic devision. A bit of fact-finding by the CC is in order.
I’m not one to advocate for cars, and I certainly wish that more tickets were issued for people running red lights and other really dangerous moves that happen all the time in Brooklyn (driving & parking in bike lanes, etc), but we have gotten several ridiculous tickets, like “Improper Registration” which nobody seemed to even understand (we called 311, contacted DOT, etc). We eventually had to pay, and eventually got refunded the money (because it was b.s. as there was nothing “improper” about our registration). We also got a ticket for something that made no sense about the liner of our pickup truck. Point is, plenty of b.s. tickets are issued for things when people aren’t “parking illegally.”