Results tagged “ticket”

Life seemed so much simpler back in the days of Don Draper. You could get back home after a long day in the office on the commuter train, which according to Mad Men was never over-crowded, and highly encouraged relaxation methods like smoking cigarettes and reading the evening paper. Or you could just drive drunk back to Ossining. Choose your own adventure! Either way, the romanticized Grand Central of yesteryear is a far cry from the nightmarish reality of today.

Ever seen a Vespa with a parking ticket on it? It seems most owners—and the NY Post is looking at you Matthew Broderick and Liev Schreiber—are going to great measures to avoid getting ticketed for illegally parking. But beware, Vespians, the paper reports that "Cops are cracking down on hipster Vespa owners who've taken to removing the vehicle-identification numbers from their rides."

Since 12:01 a.m., the NYPD has been doing this crazy thing whereby they enforce the law, issuing tickets to drivers using portable electronic devices in one of their regular 24-hour sting operations. And one driver we know has already gotten nailed. The scofflaw, who asked to remain anonymous, was shocked to find that he was being ticketed for what the cop perceived as sending a text message. But he wasn't texting, ociffer!

It's time for the city to come back to the well and conduct another cell phone ticket blitz. Why, it seems like only yesterday that the NYPD last cracked down on drivers using cell phones, but it was actually mid-August. New York State just wrapped a lucrative four-day cell phone crackdown on the Thruway, issuing 903 tickets to drivers in a mission called, no joke, "Operation Hang Up II.'' Not to be outdone, the city's sting will start at 12:01 a.m. Thursday and last 24 hours.

Chrissie Brodigan, the pug owner whose shocking arrest gripped the city this summer, has had her final ticket dismissed. Issued for disorderly conduct because Brodigan was vehemently arguing with arresting officer Joel Witriol, the ticket was ultimately tossed today because it was written incorrectly (as were the other two, in addition to being manually altered after the fact). Brodigan's lawyer speculates that Witriol may have intentionally made mistakes on the tickets so they would be dismissed on a technicality and ensure that Brodigan could not challenge the charges on their merits.

Aw: Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe made good on his promise to buy some lemonade from the 10-year-old girl who was ticketed for operating a 50-cent/per cup lemonade stand in Riverside Park without a permit. Clementine Lee had thought that selling lemonade (and cookies) would be a nice thing to do, "It was such a hot day I figured people would want a cold drink," but the overzealous parks officer thought differently, giving her a $50 ticket. In the end—and when the Post let him know about it—Benepe quashed the ticket and visited the 10-year-old at her stand, buying three cups. The Post reports that Lee found him "nice" and notes she "sold 80 cups, raising $40 for the World Wildlife Federation." As for the parks officer, he/she "has been temporarily removed from enforcement and is being retrained in park rules and regulations." Maybe we need a Colbert Report Nailed 'Em segment on Clementine—remember 6-year-old "graffiti punk" Natalie Shea?

If only the Post could shed its righteous light on every injustice: After yesterday's scoop on the guy whose Mitsubishi was towed after the DOT moved a diplomats-only parking sign, the mayor himself has ordered a full refund! On Thursday morning Shavit Mekeiten parked his car on East 41st Street near the New Zealand Consulate, but later workers dug out the diplomats-only sign and moved it fifteen feet, rendering Mekeiten's spot illegal. Soon an NYPD tow truck hauled the car away, and Mekeiten had to pay the $185 tow fee plus a $95 ticket for not having diplomatic plates. After hearing about the incident yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg responded, "I think it is obvious that it is unfair for him to pay a ticket. So, you can rest assured he will be provided with a full refund and our apologies for the inconvenience." But what about all the unfair towing you don't read about in the tabloids? The City Council is actually considering a bill requiring city workers post signs notifying drivers about parking rule changes, but until then our only hope is the Post's constant vigilance.

Lactivists are probably still reeling from the IKEA incident, but now CityRoom reports that on July 30th, Enrique Velez and Marta Lily were ticketed while breastfeeding in their parked car on East 27th Street. While they admit they were in a no-standing zone, their 6-month-old wasn't about to wait for them to get home, so Velez had run to his office nearby to heat up the breast milk. Allegedly he got caught up on a phone call, and Lily began nursing. Though their car wasn't blocking anyone, the officer gave them a $115 ticket for parking in a commercial no-meter zone, even though the no-standing restriction was only valid for another 20 minutes. The couple, as well as bystanders, explained the circumstances in hopes the officer would let it go, but to no avail. Velez told the site, “He didn’t care. We were not blocking anybody. It’s not like we had to move. There were not even cars.” Should the officer have turned a blind eye?

People, always check your bank statements. Eighteen-year-old Lydia Alcock was checking her Visa statement online when she saw that her off-peak Metro-North ticket from Grand Central to Goldens Bridge cost $23,148,855,308,184,500. Yesterday, the NY Times' Peter Abblebome wrote about the college student's amazement:

Ms. Alcock looked. She looked again. She gasped. She laughed. She shouted to her father: “Dad, you need to come here. Right now.” And then after realizing, to her chagrin, that she owed the staggering sum, not that she was the recipient of a tidy little windfall, she typed into Google: “How to say really big numbers,” and cut and pasted $23,148,855,308,184,500. It read: “twenty-three quadrillion, one hundred forty-eight trillion, eight hundred fifty-five billion, three hundred eight million, one hundred eighty-four thousand, five hundred dollars.”

Anyone who rides a bike regularly in NYC quickly realizes that the NYPD is pretty lax when it comes to keeping drivers from parking in bike lanes—hell, even the NYPD's own patrol cars are often seen blocking bike lanes. But according to the city's Department of Finance, some 70,000 tickets were issued for stopping in a bike lane last year, out of 10 million tickets issued citywide. One's inclined to dismiss that statistic as utter BS, but NY1 actually found a driver who claims he was issued a $115 ticket for blocking a bike lane on the Lower East Side. It sounds crazy, which is why it made the news! Shocked motorist Ernest Marshall says it all happened when he was picking up his wife:

As my wife was leaving the sidewalk to get into the car, a traffic officer pulled in front of me, blocked me in and then proceeded to give me a traffic ticket. There's parking, a bike lane and traffic on both sides of the street. It's impossible to load or unload passengers from a car without blocking a bike lane or traffic itself. It's unfair.

Queens resident Jimmy Hedin is feeling a different kind of sticker shock this week after a defective vehicle registration decal landed him two $65 parking tickets. As 1010 WINS reports, Hedin parks his car in Rego Park most of the week, "so a few days had passed before he realized he had been issued two tickets for the same offense—failure to properly display a current registration sticker." Hedin appears to have received one of 2.5 million registration stickers backed with defective glue. The adhesive loses its grip and causes the stickers to peel off—a flaw the DMV has acknowledged by offering to replace defective decals for free—so Hedin challenged the tickets in court. A judge dismissed the first ticket on account of the defect, but refused to dismiss the second ticket: "The claim that the sticker became unglued does not present a valid defense." Apparently, even some traffic tickets have more adhesive power than those registration stickers.

Upstate writer John Kuhner was visiting New York (his hometown) last week when his late night subway ride to Queens got even more tedious than usual. Around 5:30 a.m., a plainclothes cop entered his subway car at Roosevelt Avenue and ordered all seven male riders off the train. Like the others, Kuhner had made the mistake of putting his feet up, which is punishable with a $50 fine. He writes, "We were received by a group of police officers, six in all... who demanded our IDs and said they were going to run a check on us. It took forever for these six cops to get our names through to their computer, and the entire time all seven of us became more and more annoyed and difficult... I began to harangue the officers: 'This is ridiculous. The Law is for the resolution of grievances between citizens... This is a shameless revenue grab, and that’s why you, officer, won’t look me in the eye or even respond.'" Kuhner goes off on the cops like Patrick Henry on his sixth Sparks, and you can probably imagine how far his impassioned rhetoric got him. Read the whole indignant story here, which ends with one commenter sagely urging Kuhner to "take solace in the fact that by challenging this ticket... you will ultimately cost the city more than the $50 that they fined you."

Since the city's tax revenue has plummeted, with the stock market and the fortunes of Wall Street, the Staten Island Advance notices, "The city plans to collect a record $900 million in fines during the upcoming fiscal year, which begins next week, according to budget estimates," thanks to fines like "A $25 fine from Sanitation for failing to comply with the city's recycling regulations. A $250 summons from Parks for not stopping to 'scoop the poop' from your pet. A $200 fine from Consumer Affairs for leaving your shop store open while the air conditioning is running, and a $250 ticket from a traffic agent for leaving your engine running while you run into that store." Restaurant violations are up from $27 million last year to $38 million this coming budget year, but the big money maker is parking fines, which may rack up $600 million this year. Sari Kingsley, a recent victim of the ticket blitz, said she got her ticket minutes after parking outside her office, with the traffic agent claiming it had been there for over two hours; Kingsley said, "It's beyond just enforcement. It's harassment."

As promised, the NYPD cracked down on drivers talking on cell phones yesterday, issuing approximately 4,000 tickets by the time the evening rush hour began. According to the Post, police typically issue about 500 such tickets on a normal day. One of the unlucky thousands caught up in the dragnet was a Daily News reporter assigned to cover the ticket blitz; after getting a call from his editor, Edgar Sandoval heard "the dreaded police siren." He futilely tried to talk his way out of it by saying, "Funny story, Officer. I'm actually working on a story about this for the paper."

Remember that resourceful young Animal Collective fan who conned a bevy of real fans in the Craigslist ticket scam heard round the blogsphere? Well the plot thickens! NBC reports that, "a little over a week after a handful of hipsters around the city got ripped off, the scammer may have resurfaced on Craigslist, looking for his Williamsburg scam victim with 'cute bangs and funky glasses'." He even confesses in the ad, saying "I printed ten copies of my Animal Collective ticket and sold you one near the Lorimer stop. Maybe we can go to our next show together?" Sure, this has fake written all over it, but maybe, just maybe, this cold-hearted hustler listened to My Girls a few too many times and it softened him up.

The double-parking Santa who got a big 'ol ticket as an early Christmas present is speaking out! The Daily News reports that "he appreciates the outpouring of support, but he won't accept any charity to pay the $115 fine." He doesn't, however, want to pay it himself either. Commonly known as Chip Cafiero, he says he is "very appreciative to hear that so many people want to help him out, but as a matter of principle, we have to fight this ticket." Allegedly he'd like to prove a point about parking in the area; "These meter maids are harassing our small businesses in Bay Ridge, and it is time that we make a stand and fight for what's right. All those people who wanted to help Santa may be getting something a little extra special under the tree this year." Cafiero was dressed as Claus to hand out gifts to children when he was ticketed—so many, including Marty Markowitz, have rallied to support him.

There's nothing like a real-life heartwarming tale around the holidays. This feelgood story happened in Queens and involves a 92-year-old woman, a 24-year-old store supermarket clerk and a discarded scratch-off lottery ticket. NY1 and the Post report on Mary Alice Fallon, who is now a millionaire.

Santa may be able to fly fast through the sky, but when it comes to parking he's got to follow the law like the rest of us civilians. The Daily News reports that one Santa (The Santa?) double-parked his sleigh SUV on Third Avenue in Bay Ridge, and "neighbors and politicians demanded the summons be quashed." But James Huntley, "who heads Local 1182, defended the agent who slapped a ticket on Chip Cafiero's SUV." He also added that seeing the driver in a Santa suit wouldn't have changed the law, and notes that calling the agent a Grinch or Scrooge isn't going to make matters better (is that a threat?). Marty Markowitz, whose office sponsored the event that Santa was at, said "It's the holidays. In these situations, there should be a combination of common sense and holiday spirit instead of humbug." Free double-parking at Brooklyn Borough Hall for everyone in a Santa hat!

[UPDATE BELOW] Is a recently installed bike lane on South 4th Street in Brooklyn—yards from the northern pedestrian/bike entrance to the Williamsburg Bridge—misguiding cyclists onto the sidewalk and into the waiting arms of ticket-writing cops? A reader writes:

"As I reach the corner of South 4th Street and South 5th Place, just one short block away from one of the Brooklyn entrances to the Williamsburg bridge, I see that the bike lane arrows turn and point to the sidewalk. I thought it odd but I followed it knowing that it was just a short bit away from the entrance. 3/4 ways down the sidewalk I get stopped by 2 cops telling me that I can't ride on the sidewalk.... And then they proceed to give me a ticket!

Continue reading "Bike Lane Directing Cyclists Onto Sidewalk, Into Cops"

A state senator from Long Island is proposing that texting on one's mobile phone while driving should be illegal. It's already against the law to talk on a phone while one is driving. Studies have shown that that is about as distracting as being drunk behind the wheel. One can only imagine how distracting texting--which involves digital manipulation and reading, versus simply talking--could be in comparison.