New York, NY – Mayor Bloomberg’s crackdown on motorists who abuse official parking placards has snared a slew of detectives and investigators who work for the city’s prosecutors.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
Records show that a special squad of cops from the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau handed out a total of 6,915 placard-related summonses between April and December 2008 and towed 1,165 vehicles.
The list of agencies snared in the sweeps reads like a Who’s Who of law enforcement – the NYPD, the Correction Department, federal agents and employees of the court system and the district attorneys.
“The numbers speak for themselves,” said Deputy Mayor Ed Skyler, assigned by Bloomberg last spring to reduce the number of official placards and step up enforcement.
The placards allow the holders certain privileges, such as parking at an expired meter or in a truck-loading zone.
But they also carry restrictions.
“A lot of people think you can use it anywhere,” NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said. “That’s not true.”
He said the placard squad routinely patrols “problematic locations” with heavy concentrations of government employees, such as lower Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn.
With more official vehicles than parking spots to accommodate them, even the privileged parkers sometimes resort to breaking the law.
Browne said almost all of those receiving summonses have genuine placards, but are parked illegally. Anyone in a bus stop or in front of a hydrant also faces a tow.
The fines – usually $115 in Manhattan – come right out of the privileged parker’s pocket.
One law-enforcement source said most of the 197 tickets accumulated by DAs’ offices were in the vicinity of the courthouses around jammed Foley Square in Manhattan.
The source said the DAs used to get placards that read “POLICE,” since 90 percent of those driving the DAs’ vehicles are detectives and investigators.
“Now it says ‘DISTRICT ATTORNEY’ in large letters. The parking-enforcement people don’t respect that,” the source said. “We don’t have a huge problem. It is annoying when you get ticketed or towed with placard where the placard should have been effective.”
Jerry Schmetterer, a spokesman for Brooklyn DA Joe Hynes, said the crackdown doesn’t pose much of a problem for his office, since it’s equipped with a garage.
The number of placard summonses peaked in June at 1,003. By December, the number had been cut to 685.
Skyler said City Hall has every intention of keeping up the pressure.
“It requires a sustained effort,” he said. “If you declare victory, you’re doomed to failure.”
Its nice to see some of these bums getting ticketed. Now lets have a followup to see if they actually pay the fine out of their own pocket., not taxpayer s pockets.
I had to laugh when I read “Schmetterer” I would never think its a real name. Anyway
dont ticket me when i park illegally. i am always on a house call.
A few yeasr ago the cuty was pressured into eliminating meter parking on Sundays because people went to church on that and it was unconstitutional to have to “Pay to Pray”.
Well, about 6 months ago I parked at a meter while running into to Shomer Shabbos to catch a Mincha. When I came out I found a ticket on my car for an expired meter. I fought the ticket claiming that I was devening Mincha and shouldn’t have to “Pay to Pray” and lost!
Talk about unfair!
“With more official vehicles than parking spots to accommodate them” What about more non-official vehicles than parking spots to accommodate them? Are we ruzshinkes? Is their business more vital than ours just because they can print placards?
Why do DA Lawyers need placards anyway – why do they even need official cars – the DA investigators do need cars/palckards because they are investigating Detectives.
There are still too many people who don’t need official vehicles who have them and use them for personal use. And too many placards.