By Vincent Safuto staff writer
June 7, 2003
I'm planning on going to New York City in October to see the family, visit old friends and watch my youngest brother get married. I'll be bringing luggage, of course, and leaving the kitties home.
In preparing for a trip to New York in its current state, you'd better have a list of laws, because there are countless innocuous things you can do that will bring down the wrath of New York's Finest on your head and pocketbook.
New York City has, according to the Daily News and New York Post, gone summons-happy.
Among the famous tickets written was handed to a man for sitting on a milk crate. There's a law against that in New York City. A pregnant woman sat down on the steps leading to the subway. Ticket for blocking the stairs, though there was plenty of room to pass. It's the law.
A tourist got nailed for the awful crime of taking up two seats on the subway, even though the car was empty. It's the law.
In my old neighborhood, a woman whose car was hit in front and badly damaged got three tickets one per day for having a car with broken headlights even though she wasn't using it. She was waiting for the insurance adjuster to look at it, but you don't get any mercy from the police anymore. Another family got a ticket for blocking a driveway their own. It's the law.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg claims nothing has changed and that the city is just enforcing its laws. The police commissioner says he's enforcing "performance standards" on the cops and the mayor's press secretary says it's all the fault of the media.
But the police officers' union has taken out full-page ads saying there's a "quota" system in place, and one news story noted that when a cop asked for a day off, he was told to go out and write 20 tickets first, and then he'd get his day.
It's a far cry from the good old days of the mid- to late 1970s. Sure, the city was a financial wreck as it is now but you felt like you could get away with things. It seemed that everything fun was against the law in the city, but enforcement was lax. Student drivers technically couldn't drive in the city, and the only way to practice for the road test was to go outside the city limits, but you could get away with it.
Fireworks were banned in the city, though the Fourth of July often sounded like "shock and awe" day as just about every house on the block lit off firecrackers, M-80s and rockets until they ran out of everything. Sparklers were allowed, but no self-respecting teenager would go near them with a 10-foot pole.
Where everything is illegal, and even minor infractions cause massive punishments, contempt for the law flourishes. Lots of places have weird laws, and New York may think that enforcing them is a good way to bring in revenue, but the end result is to become the laughing stock of the nation.
But I have to hold back because I wonder if laughing at New York politicians also can get you a ticket.
Vincent F. Safuto is a copy editor for the Press Journal. Reach him at (Vincent.Safuto@scripps.com).
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