From the Daily News:Turns out you can fight City Hall.
After a 21/2-year battle, a Sheepshead Bay man has won a court ruling throwing out a $115 ticket he received for parking in front of a nonexistent fire hydrant.
Simon Belsky, 63, was slapped with a ticket in November 2006 for parking in front of a fire hydrant at 2909 Avenue U - even though there's a meter, not a hydrant, located at that address.
After five administrative challenges to the ticket were ignored or rejected, Belsky sued the city in State Supreme Court last August.
Last month, Judge Michael Ambrosio ruled the city couldn't prove Belsky broke the rules.
"The petitioners' claim was entirely persuasive because there is a meter and not a fire hydrant located in front of 2909 Avenue U, the location listed on the summons," Ambrosio wrote.
He threw out the ticket and awarded Belsky the $650 he spent on court costs.
7 comments:
A small, but very good story.
I watch Channel 7 Eyewitness News, and so many times such a stupid incident requires a person to get Tappy Phillips of "7 On Your Side" to resolve the situation. (Presumably the same with other local consumer reporters.) It makes me so angry to see how the ineptness of some individuals would cause an honest person to have to waste so much of his own valuable time to sort out such a mess. Kudos to this fellow!
its good to win especially with these bogus "rookie" tickets that are given to fill quotas, but a 2 1/2 year fight, come on.
Congratulations Simon.
It certainly takes stamina, determination and patience to fight for your rights even if it takes 2 1/2 years. Apparently, some believe there's a time limit to fighting for what's right and just. They are the worthless trivia in our midst.
If we had many more fighters like you, this city would be thousands of times far better.
Illegitimi non carborundum!
Good for him!!!
One of our restaurant locations here in Manhattan had a "water sampling station" that looked similar to a hydrant -no really if you noticed that it's top flipped open to reveal a faucet...no matter, for years staff and patrons got tickets.
Finally our lawyer pointed out that this thing wasn't even legal to use for water sampling and had long been disconnected. It took multiple ticket disposals, 11 years and finally a lawsuit to get the "thing" removed.
It only cost him $650 and several years of his life to prove what a $5.00 disposable camera could have proved.
Justice is blind indeed. Calling Hellen Keller.
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