Push to use video as evidence for littering summonses

From the Queens Chronicle:

A Sanitation Department official told the Woodhaven Residents’ Block Association last Thursday that the agency would “love” to use camera footage in its enforcement of littering laws, but can’t because of the law.

“It does help our enforcement because usually its ritualized,” said Nicholas Circharo, community affairs liaison for the DSNY. “They do it every morning. We would love to use the footage.”

Right now, Sanitation enforcement agents must catch a litterer in the act to write him or her a summons and are not allowed to use video evidence against an illegal dumper.

Councilman Bob Holden (D-Middle Village) said earlier in the meeting that he’d be interested in writing a bill that would allow the agency to use surveillance equipment to keep streets clean.

Litter laws are a top issue for the WRBA, and it’s discussed at almost every one of the civic’s meetings. Circharo was asked to appear at the May one to answer a few questions from WRBA President Steve Forte and other residents.

Many complained that summonses are often written to homeowners and merchants for trash left behind by other people in front of their property — some businesses have been issued thousands of dollars in violations.

Parking placard abusers to feel the heat

From AM-NY:

As civil servants continue to illegally park personal vehicles on city streets unticketed, Mayor Bill de Blasio renewed a vow Thursday that he made last May: “We’re going to crack down.”

Safe-streets and good-government activists have long objected to how the vehicles park daily and dangerously around the five boroughs — on sidewalks, in front of hydrants, at curbs, in restricted zones — a practice especially acute near courts, firehouses and police precincts.

“The message is very clear: we’re coming for anyone who violates the rules relating to a placard, or anyone who has an inappropriate placard,” he said Thursday at an unrelated news conference.

Across the city, department-themed hats, vests, union calendars, union-issued placards — which confer no legal status — and handwritten notes are placed on dashboards and amount to impunity to traffic agents and cops, who refuse to ticket brethren.

De Blasio said Thursday that the NYPD’s top transportation cop, Thomas M. Chan, would soon be providing an update of the department’s enforcement efforts.

After de Blasio spoke, his spokesman Austin Finan reissued a statement he gave amNewYork for a story published earlier in the week: that there were 41,931 placard summonses issued last year, compared to 28,269 in 2016.

Huge drop in criminal summonses

From the Daily News:

The city is moving in the “right direction” with a dramatic drop in tickets for small-time crimes like public drinking and public urination, Mayor de Blasio said Sunday.

The number of criminal summonses dropped 90% for the period from June to October, compared with the year before, after the City Council passed a law allowing cops to give civil tickets for the minor offenses, which also include unreasonable noise and littering.

But the new civil summonses did not make up the difference in tickets — there were about 26,0000 civil summonses, while criminal summonses dropped more than 50,000, according to the data released Friday.

Why ticket quotas aren't a good idea

From the NY Post:

The city will shell out $75 million to settle a class-action lawsuit involving nearly 1 million bogus NYPD summonses allegedly issued to meet quotas, officials said Monday.

The massive payout comes six years after a lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court claimed that cops were forced to issue the tickets for quality-of-life offenses to meet targeted numbers, “regardless of whether any crime or violation” occurred.

The court case involved more than 900,000 summonses that were issued between 2007 and 2015 and eventually dismissed for lack of probable cause.

The people who were ticketed may now be eligible for compensation to the tune of $150 per summons. They will be notified about the claims process in order to get the cash, officials said.

Drunk tennis fans get a pass

From the NY Post:

Parks Department officers are under strict orders not to issue summonses for public drinking, urination and other offenses around Arthur Ashe Stadium so as not to spoil the fun for tournament-goers, it was revealed Thursday.

In the past, Parks Enforcement Patrol officers usually wrote hundreds of tickets during the two-week tennis championship, said Geoffrey Croft, the head of NYC Park Advocates.

But this year, officers were specifically told by the head of the Flushing Meadows-Corona Park command, “Don’t write summonses during the US Open,” Croft said.

“Talk about a Tale of Two Cities — it’s selective enforcement,” one officer told Croft, who writes the blog “A Walk in the Park.”

“Crime is going up and summonses are down. We’re being hindered from doing our job. The US Open is calling the shots.”

The head of the union that represents the PEP officers, Joseph Puleo, accused the city of “using our officers as political pawns and allowing crimes to be committed without coverage.”

Should we lighten up on minor offenses?

From DNA Info:

Penalties for drinking alcohol and urinating in public could be reduced under a package of bills being discussed by the city council next week.

Under the Criminal Justice Reform Act of 2016, drinking alcohol in public, littering, public urination, unreasonable noise and violating parks rules would largely be considered civil offenses punishable with summonses, according to a city council memo on the plan.

The legislation would remove the possibility of a permanent criminal record for urinating in public and violating park rules. Instead, police would create public guidelines about when those violations are civil or criminal offenses.

The city has used the "broken windows" theory of policing for years which holds that smaller offenses are predictors for larger crimes. Both Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner Bill Bratton have remained strong defenders of the strategy in the face of criticism that the theory unjustly targets minorities and the poor.

NYPD raids FMCP

From DNA Info:

Late-night revelers partying at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park after dark were slapped with summonses during an early-morning raid over the weekend, police said.

Officers from the 110th Precinct entered the park at 1 a.m. and handed out 39 summonses on Sunday, May 31 after multiple complaints about loud music and partying, according to Deputy Inspector Christopher Manson.

The identities of those given summonses and the exact violations were not immediately available, but the typical type of summonses given out are for violating city rules against being in the park after dark, police said.

It's the latest enforcement at the borough's largest park after complaints from neighbors in surrounding communities about speeding drivers and partiers who take advantage of the park's thoroughfares, which are open 24 hours a day despite rules against entering the park after dark to allow access to nearby highways.

Manson has said at public meetings he'd like the road that connects the Van Wyck Expressway and Grand Central Parkway through the park to be closed at night to prevent access once it closes.

Council looking to decriminalize quality-of-life crimes

From the Daily News:

City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito’s office is working on a proposal that would make some of the most common criminal court summonses civil charges instead. Violators would get a ticket to one of the city’s administrative courts, such as the Environmental Control Board, instead of criminal court. Cops could no longer make arrests for those offenses, and missed court dates would turn into default monetary judgments instead of warrants.

Bratton appears cool to the idea, saying people wouldn’t take a civil ticket seriously.

A Daily News analysis shows the seven offenses that would be sent to one of the city’s administrative civil courts under the Mark-Viverito plan account for roughly 2.7 million, or 42%, of the summonses issued by the NYPD between 2001 and June 2014. They also account for more than 510,000 open arrest warrants, according to the analysis of data provided by the state Office of Court Administration.

The seven offenses under consideration are public consumption of alcohol, public urination, bicycling on the sidewalk, being in a park after dark, failure to obey a park sign, littering and unreasonable noise. The offenses under consideration for decriminalization are under the city’s administrative code — not the state penal code — making it possible to amend them without state approval, officials said.

Public urination and open container are the only two minor offenses for which fines can be paid by mail. But Lancman said many people have reservations about allowing people to simply pay online for criminal court summonses because they’d essentially be pleading guilty to a violation or, in some cases, a misdemeanor without having an attorney present.

“When it’s a civil offense we don’t have any problem letting people pay online or by mail without having to show up at all ... that would almost certainly mean you’d have a higher percentage of people paying a fine,” Lancman said.

He said that in criminal summons court, roughly half the people don’t show up, and of the people who do show up and are assessed a fine, a quarter of them don’t pay.

NYPD tickets passengers escaping bum stink

A familiar scene, riders wait on the platform at the first Jamaica Center Station anticipating seats. Then bam, in and out; like a dusty blue bell. Riders trying to escape danger to their health from bums; they passed through the train cars in search of clean air.

But as they bolted through the train cars, they encountered police officers. Each rider was extracted from the train by the police; and given a ticket.

The police officers are quite aware of the routine; so they were armed and ready with their ticket booklet. Ironically, passing through the cars is illegal; it is meant to keep riders safe.

However, it is legal for riders to inhale germs. A deliberate effort to make people sick. Anyone has a better logical conclusion?

Train cars # 9230 & 9231 & 9232 were emitting a strong scent, so naturally riders tried to escape. Meanwhile, riders had to stand in packed cars while the bums occupied most of the seats. Not only with their bodies, but with their sickening scent. - Pamela Hazel

________________________________________________

Another great job Pamela, local elected officials should turn a percentage of their overblown salaries to you.

Boy, does this city have everything ass backwards, low-life folks and elected officials get away with everything and upstanding citizens get a big F*CK YOU up the ass without lube.

Here in Jamaica, we cannot get proper enforcement of dangerous illegal truck driving on residential streets, we cannot get a crackdown on illegal conversions, we cannot get enforcement on illegal curb cuts, we cannot get any help on the major garbage problem and the homeless have turned our subway cars and Jamaica Center Station into a roach motel, but NYPD takes the time to give tickets to law abiding citizens, including elderly woman and people going to work who are just trying to escape the deadly fumes and bugs from the bottom barrel cave dwellers, people who made bad career choices in their lives.

Majorly F*CKED UP NYPD and normally I side with you, not this time.

And where the hell are you Katz, Comrie, Miller, Wills and the other assorted do nothing political welfare cases. Oh, wait, Wills is prepping for his eventual trial on corruption charges and Comrie is just being Comrie, which is smiling for a camera while bullshit flies out of the side of his mouth and collecting tax payers money. - Joe Moretti


Can you imagine if we had a whole borough full of Pamelas and Joes? Things would sure be a lot different.

Car clubs party on at Flushing Meadows

From the Queens Tribune:

Hundreds of drivers have been performing dangerous stunts and blasting loud music at Flushing Meadows Corona Park, tormenting neighbors and frustrating police.

Like a scene from the movie “The Fast and The Furious,” the drivers drift their souped up cars through a parking lot near Meadow Lake, Deputy Inspector Ronald Leyson said at a Community Council meeting Thursday night. They have also taken over lots at Willets Point across from Citi Field, and near the marina by the Grand Central Parkway.

Elliot Tayman, who lives in Hyde Park Gardens just off the Van Wyck Expressway, said he has been enduring “high pitched” and “defeaning” sounds from mufflers and screeching wheels.

“All the sounds really do travel like a tsunami,” Tayman said.

“It’s been a chronic 311 complaint for me for the past couple of months,” Leyson said.

The drivers range in age from teenagers to thirtysomethings and typically belong to car clubs, which for a time the precinct was monitoring on social media, until the clubs caught on.

According to Leyson, the sheer number of drivers and bystanders makes the drifting difficult to combat. He said that the drivers congregate on an inconsistent schedule, and safely blocking in the parking lot near Meadow Lake requires at least 20 cops, while handing out summonses can take hours.

Compounding the problem, many of the drivers seem undeterred by enforcement tactics. During one weekend, the 110th precinct gave out 83 summonses one night, only to give out 94 the next, Leyson said.

“You’d think they would learn,” he added.

NYPD ramps up patrols of Highland Park

From the Queens Courier:

The 104th Precinct wants park-goers to take a hike out of Highland Park at curfew.

Starting later this year officers will make daily patrols through the park at 8:30 p.m. to tell people to leave by 9 p.m., when it closes.

Residents living near Highland Park, a green space with many trails and ball fields near the Brooklyn-Queens border in Ridgewood, have been complaining about people using the park through the late hours of the night.

The Precinct has heard complaints of drinking and loud music playing after hours in the park dating back to last year, and Captain Chris Manson said that the party has ended.

Officers will start making the rounds as soon as the weather is warmer. If someone is spotted after the curfew they will be issued a summons.

Huang fined for Klein Farm tree massacre

From the Queens Chronicle:

Summonses have been issued to Audrey Realty Corp., owners of Klein farm at 194-15 73 Ave., for two separate violations following the illegal removal of trees.

According to the Department of Buildings, the first hearing, which will be held at the Queens Business Center at 144-06 94 Ave. in Jamaica, is set for Jan. 28 and addresses a violation for working without a permit, citing the illegal tree removal and extension of a driveway. The standard fine is for $800 with a default of $4,000.

The second hearing, which is for a zoning violation for modification of the landscape, is scheduled for Feb. 4. An $800 fine is also set with a default of $4,000. Both hearings can be avoided if the owners admit to the violations and pay the fines by Jan. 21 and Jan. 27, respectively.

Now that's compassion for you

From DNA Info:

The city’s Department of Buildings has slapped violations on homeowners of condemned homes in Breezy Point that were destroyed during Hurricane Sandy, DNAinfo.com New York has learned.

Dozens of already shell-shocked homeowners trying to deal with the aftermath of the storm found tickets nailed to their crushed homes this week.

One violation cited “failure to maintain” the building, and the ticket's wording threatened “criminal prosecution” if the problem was not “immediately corrected.”

“It was shocking,” one homeowner said after finding the summons taped to a mangled storm door Friday.

“Here I am dealing with a house that's off its foundation, it is condemned, and I finally found a contractor with a bulldozer to push it to the curb so that it can be taken away by FEMA,” said the owner, who requested anonymity.

“And just as I am about to watch my house be carted away on the back of a trailer by FEMA forever, the contractor sees a white piece of paper tacked to it."

A spokesman for the Buildings Department told DNAinfo.com that the notices were simply a formality of the process, not intended as a notice of civil action.

"These violations were issued to document the damage that occurred and do not carry any monetary penalties for the property owner," said department spokesman Tony Sclafani.
Still, that offered little consolation for the homeowners left with nothing, after their homes were torn down, but the words on that piece of paper.

“I did not know what it was, and then I stood in the street, watching my house being taken away, and I am reading the paper and it is a summons for a building violation,” said the homeowner.

“What are they smoking down there?” he wondered about the Buildings workers.

The remedy, it says, is “Obtain all necessary permits for demo/repairs.”

Will fee for the permits be waived, at least?

From the NY Times:

New York City is moving to demolish hundreds of homes in the neighborhoods hit hardest by Hurricane Sandy, after a grim assessment of the storm-ravaged coast revealed that many structures were so damaged they pose a danger to public safety and other buildings nearby.

About 200 homes will be bulldozed in the coming days, almost all of them one- and two-family houses on Staten Island, in Queens and Brooklyn. That is in addition to 200 houses that are already partially or completely burned down, washed away or otherwise damaged; those sites will also be cleared.

The Buildings Department is still inspecting nearly 500 other damaged structures, some of which could also be razed, according to the commissioner, Robert L. LiMandri.

One challenge facing the department is reaching owners of the homes facing demolition. Many are now living elsewhere — with friends or family or in hotels or shelters — and are barred from entering the houses because they are unsafe.

The city is trying to proceed with sensitivity, with Buildings Department staff members walking the streets in these neighborhoods, trying to track down those affected through their friends and neighbors and urging them to go to one of the six recovery centers set up by the city and to register their damaged homes by calling 311.

But, in some cases, where the danger is imminent, the department will issue an emergency declaration to bulldoze the buildings, even if the owners have not been contacted.

“This is not easy, in this case, because of all these displaced people, but we’re going to do the best we can, but we may have to move on it if we can’t find them,” Mr. LiMandri said.

Council attempts to curb placard abuse

From AM-NY:

City Council members Wednesday introduced a bill that would require barcodes on all parking placards in an effort to crackdown on rampant abuse.

Nearly a quarter of permits placed on vehicle dashboards are fake, according to a report released yesterday by the advocacy group Transportation Alternatives. And more than half of the permits surveyed were either being used illegally or were forged.

Using a barcode on the 118,000 placards issued to authorized city workers would help police quickly identify bogus documents, Councilman Daniel Garodnick (D-Manhattan) told colleagues Wednesday during a transportation committee hearing.

Susan Petito, Assistant Commissioner of Intergovernmental Affairs for the NYPD, disagreed.

“A good photocopy will replicate the barcode and so that would come up as a valid permit,” Petito said, without offering an alternative solution to the problem.

The NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau unit has written 30,000 summonses for illegal placard parking since 2008, she noted.

Lots of cops under investigation in the Bronx

From the Daily News:

A grand jury probe of an alleged Bronx ticket-fixing scheme focuses on as many as 40 cops, including delegates from the city's largest police union, sources told the Daily News.

More than two dozen cops are being eyed for making summonses disappear in exchange for gifts - a felony - sources said.

At least 10 others are being investigated for lesser crimes, including obstructing governmental administration. These cops are suspected of losing tickets that they had "taken care of," the source said.

"Guys are being asked what do they know about cops getting gifts or asking for gifts," according to one source.

"They're talking about indictments for larceny. They're talking about indictments for bribery. ... It's not going to be pretty."

Untangling the traffic mess at Queens Center

From NY1:

Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus drivers say it feels like a game of real-life bumper cars when they try to make their way around livery cabs outside the Queens Center Mall.

"You can't get into the curb. You have to honk the horn. [Cars] don't move. Passengers get off the bus and they have to weave in between the cars,” said one bus driver.

For riders, stepping as far as two lanes into Queens Boulevard can be just the start of the adventure.

“Sometimes it is very hard for me to get up into the bus. So it's really very hard,” said a bus rider.

A half-dozen bus lines stop outside the main entrance to the mall. The buses compete with cars, vans, and the livery cabs trolling for shoppers.

Police are trying to do something about it. The New York City Police Department says the 110th Precinct gave out more than 200 tickets in September alone. MTA managers can write summonses, too. And the Taxi and Limousine Commission has issued more than 600 of its own and seized 30 cabs.

But, locals say the curb gets crowded again the instant officers leave.

Stay off the sidewalk!

From the NY Post:

Manhattan cyclists, be warned -- obey the rules of the road or else.

The NYPD has declared war on reckless bicyclists, slapping cyclists with summonses for everything from riding on the sidewalk to near-misses with pedestrians to disobeying traffic signals and other rules of the road.

On the Upper East Side, cops issued 360 summonses from July 8 to Aug. 8, or about 11 a day, police said.

During the previous 30-day period, cops slapped cyclists with 240 summonses, or about eight a day. Reckless cyclists are the No. 1 quality-of-life complaint in the area, police said.

"The elderly pedestrians feel like they are taking their lives in their hands, even when they have a green light," said a top police official.

The summonses require a court appearance, and the fines are set at the discretion of the judge -- but they usually begin at about $50 for first offenders.

Citywide, police have issued 15,455 summonses to cyclists so far this year.

Cops on graveyard shift issuing stupid tickets

From the NY Post:

A Fashion Institute of Technology student and a waiter at a Brooklyn diner were each recently nailed by graveyard-shift transit cops, who hit them with $50 fines for taking up more than one seat on virtually empty trains at around 2:30 a.m.

Josh Stevens, of Harlem, a recent transplant from Cincinnati, was stunned when he was slapped with back-to-back summonses at the 96th Street station on Nov. 19 and 20, in what police told him was a quota-driven sting.

"After the second time, I asked the officer, 'Really, what's going on? Why is this happening?' " Stevens said. "And he told me, 'Recently we've been told to write tickets instead of give warnings for this type of thing.' He said they need to hit quotas."

Three weeks later, police were still at it when Andres Alzamora, 58, was cited for taking up more then one seat -- even though the waiter said he just had his legs in front of the space next to him.

He was stunned when police told him to step out of the 2 train at around 2:30 a.m. at the 96th Street station so he could be given the summons.

"There was no one else in the subway with me," he said. "They just want to make money."

Stevens said the police should do this kind of enforcement during the rush hour, and not in the "dead of night."