New York, NY – Merchants and elected officials are blasting what they call a parking ticket blitz in the borough that’s driving customers away from local businesses.
But the NYPD says ticketing has actually gone down since last year.
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Castle Hill businessman Robert Bieder – who organized 12 north Bronx local merchant associations into the Bronx Merchants Coalition – said a survey of its 3,497 members showed that aggressive ticketing was their top concern.
“Customers are telling merchants, ‘I can’t keep shopping here – I can’t afford the tickets,’ ” Bieder said.
“Meter maids are descending like locusts on certain communities,” said City Councilman James Vacca (D-East Bronx).
As one example, he pointed to the intersection of Westchester and Castle Hill Aves., which he said saw about 5,000 parking tickets issued over the past year.
“This intersection is the highest I’ve ever seen,” Vacca said.
Vacca was joined at a news conference there by Brooklyn Councilman- and candidate for public advocate – Bill de Blasio (D-Park Slope), who called for a citywide audit of ticketing practices to find possible patterns of abuse.
De Blasio charged that while other city agencies are under a hiring freeze, Mayor Bloomberg’s plans to hire 200 additional traffic agents shows aggressive ticketing is “part of a revenue strategy” to prop up the shrinking city budget.
Both politicians blasted zero-tolerance enforcement of tiny or momentary violations – ticketing drivers double-parked waiting for another car just pulling out of a parking space, or agents hovering over meters to write a ticket the moment time expires.
A bill Vacca introduced to combat questionable tickets would require traffic agents to include a photograph clearly showing the violation with each ticket issued.
“The ‘I Gotcha’ tickets have got to stop,” Vacca said.
While not addressing ticketing activity at the Castle Hill intersection, the NYPD said statistics showparking tickets issued by uniformed officers in the local 43rd Precinct are down by 1,200 so far for the first six months of the year.
Boroughwide figures for parking tickets issued by both uniformed officers and traffic agents show about 24,000 fewer tickets issued in the first six months of this year than in the same period last year.
“This information doesn’t correspond to what I’m hearing on the ground and what I see seven days a week,” said Vacca. “If there’s a decrease, it’s not in my district.”
How do I pay a ticket online?
System says my ticket is not there and may take 4 weeks to get onto the online system!!! By which time they add $10 a week for late charges.
The whole thing is a scam. Especially the $40 SURCHARGE added to every ticket.
Please note Parking Tickets are more often issued in neighborhoods where the writer is not woried about being attacked.
the ticket nazis(brownies) are the worse. they don’t care wats going on droping a 80 yr old off by the doc orhelping someone on the side of the road. they give u a ticket. they don’t even take a moment to listen to wat u r saying. but when they need to do smethng like get lunch or do a private errand. they park on the side walk by bus stops by pumps and double park. they do wat the give other people tickets for. every day it gets worse they keep on giving tickets the economey keeps on getting wrse and they keep on raising ticket prices.
i wqs once on the phone with the public advocates office about a meter maid making an anti semitic remark (for which nothing has been done), and while on the phone i went back to my car which had one miniute remaining, and already had a ticket on the window. impossible to prove the meter wasnt expired. its time we started fighting back. all store owners should take their addresses off their stores, and each block of store should hire a person to feed quarters, and shoppers should sign waivers giving the stores the power to pay their meters, which would loophole around the meter feeding rule of needeng to be the owner. a legal document putting the stores in charge of your parking will superceded any law. in essence fo the matter of parking, you are giving the person outside authority to be your “shliach”. of course this will only be there to use in emergency, and you would need to give the quarter to person when you get back to the car. bloomberg thinks like a jew, so we should counter him. he thinks hell raise revenue with the tickets, lets decrease revenue. if you see a meter maid writing a ticket, as for their superviseor, they by law need to stay and wait for the supervisor to come. waste thier time. when bloomberg sees that all his brownshirts are just standing around waiting for their supervisors, hell get the point. if they refuse, call the ccrb (civilian complaint review board). if you have a camera on your cell, take pictures. find people around that will be “willing” to collaborate that the ticket was given illegally. call the police and say you are being accosted by a brownshirt. (the cops hate them more then we do!!!)
use city hall against itself. call your councilman. tell felder that new garbage cans with his name on it arent needed. tell him that the fact that midwood and borough park have gotten more tickets than the entire borough of staten island is outrageous!
since he seems not to care, tell him you will vote against him no mtterwhat. our taxes have gone up, our prices on necessities have gone up, nyc gas taxes, and ny state gas taxes have gone up (oil btw, has not, the extra dollar you are paying this year is all state and city taxes, so much for “evil big oil”).
and if there are any civil attorneys out there, file a lawsuit on behalf of an nyc residents. it is against state law to balance a budget based on perceived monies that will be collected through tickets of any kind. bloomberg does, and it has to stop.
Where are our elected officials?!?
Stop worrying about “Treifeh” billboards, take care of this ticket madness!
If you want to live in a city of 10 million and still be able to drive around, you will have to live with parking enforcement. A good contrary example is Moscow, where they have very little parking enforcement, and in the central part of the city you literally can’t move, people are spending hours in traffic EVERY DAY. The only way to deter people from parking illegally is a very large chance of getting a substantial fine. Tough, but that’s the way the life is.
They come out in droves on friday in the holy city of borough park. Ticketing any and everyone they see. no rachmanus…. Hashem yerachem….
Last year one of the tv stations followed the ticket lady around and watched as she wrote the tickets out before the allowed time. If parking was not permitted at 9:30 am, they ticketed people at 9:28 am and this was all filmed and put on tv and a few people got tickets. People are getting invalid tickets and nobody is doing anything about it! I think it was either Ch. 2 or Ch.4
what happened to jimmy justice? he used to chase those chayas around with a video camera and catch them writing tickets too early or parking their own car in front of a fire hydrant. look him up on youtube. we need more guys like him out there. with muni meters an anonymous person can no longer feed the meter for you. the receipt has to be displayed on the car windshield.
Where is Felder?
#6
Parking illegally, and getting a ticket that was written illegally are 2 different things. I agree that there have to be parking rules, but we do not need these brownies standing at meters giving tickets 2 minutes before it expires. YOU probably don’t own a car, or you don’t live in the city. Otherwise you would not comment the way you did.
“The only way to deter people from parking illegally is a very large chance of getting a substantial fine. Tough, but that’s the way the life is.”.
This only deters parking altogether, as any storeowner will tell you.
Thats the way life when Bloomberg wants to fill the till, and since we live in a democratic country, it is about time we fight off these evil shvartza buggers.
We need more traffic agents in boro park especially on 13th ave. Bill, come to 13 ave in middle of day Friday and Sunday and then lets hear if the tickets are not warranted.
To #16 :
1)The agents who write tickets before meter’s expiration should be criminally prosecuted for perjury
2)However, the only way for the city to make the parking agents do their job is to set up the system when they benefit from the increased ticket volume. It means that they will be writing tickets whenever thay legally can, even when fairness would dictate to let it pass.If you have a better way to make me able to get from Lincoln Tunnel exit to,say, 47th and Park in 15 minutes at 2PM (that’s how long it takes usually), many municipalities would make you their chief traffic coordinator.
#9 you are wrong. I got a $ 120 seatbelt ticket and it didn’t show up online until 5 weeks later.
You are better off to pay the fine. There is only a 1% chance of the ticket not getting in.
I personally got 3 parking tickets in the last month In all 3 cases the agent was wrong. In one the no parking arrow was pointing one way I was parked on the other side of the sign. in another I was parked right under a Tuesday no paking (arrow both ways) I got a no standing ticket because on the corner is a no standing sign. the agent wrote 35 feet from cornor when i was parked about 100 feet away. I am waiting for a reply. But bottom line its now my word against an agent. it also takes time and effort to take pictures, type a letter etc.
I have also heared recently from many friends getting tickets for seatbelts when they were wearing seatbelts. Try to fight this.
In general i belive there should be much more leeway if your not blocking traffic and are double parked (to drop someoeone off) or in a bus stop and no bus in sight AND YOU ARE WITH THE CAR why should you get a ticket.
Quick! Mr. Bloomberg, quick! I know where you can get another 666 traffic agents EXACTLY where you got the last bunch!
It only takes five steps Mr. Bloomberg, just like you did during the past seven years.
Step One….Pick the first 666 names of people on welfare who weigh more than 300 pounds each.
Step Two….Walk into any Dunkin Donuts and tell all 666 of them to follow you out.
Step Three…..Enroll them in your four day crash course on how to force the middle class out of the city through frustration and anger, also know as….Release your inner anger at all who can afford to own cars by givng them parking tickets.
Step Four….Untie the leashes and drop them off on any avenue.
Step Five…. At the news conferences, show how well you balance the budget and ask to be elected for the third time.
Finally, if that doesn’t work so well, get another bunch but this time call them garbage police, and go after all middle class idiots who still want to live in the city and therefore own garbage cans, and again show how you have lowered the welfare roles.
Now, send each agent home to dream the American dream of swallowing 25 donuts per day until the city is forced to pay for you stomach stapling.
Written parking tickets now take up to 3 months to be entered, penalty’s do not accumulate during this period, trust me, my business get several tickets every week.
how is one supposed to make a delivery if he cant double park? this city is doing everything in its power to hurt small businessess while claiming to support them.
#22 is right. many times you get a ticket even if you are parked legaly. But it’s your word against their word.Not much you can do.
I once came out of a Chasuna hall at 2 am. I was parked in MIDDLE of the block legaly. I had a ticket on my windsheild that I am parked illegally ‘AT THE CORNER! My relatives from the city laughed and said I should just pay it. No way to prove that I was VERY far from the corner. (unless maybe if I bring them all as witness) I thought it was ridiculous.
This looks like a job for Jimmy Justice!