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'Quality-of-life' crackdown has New Yorkers seeing

Josey1Josey1 Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
edited May 2003 in General Discussion
'Quality-of-life' crackdown has New Yorkers seeing red
Ticketing blitz strikes nerve of urban outrage
By Josh Getlin
Special To The Sun
Originally published May 30, 2003



NEW YORK - Crystal Rivera had no idea she was on the front lines of New York City's battle to plug a multibillion-dollar budget deficit. But after the pregnant woman received a $50 fine recently for sitting on subway steps, she got the picture in a hurry.

The police officer who cited her for briefly blocking a stairwell didn't seem to care that she was exhausted and reluctant to sit on a filthy subway bench, Rivera recalled. After a futile protest, the 18-year-old Brooklyn student joined the ranks of others here who have been fined for equally bizarre violations - and are angrily protesting them.

There's Jesse Taveras, who sat on a milk crate outside the Bronx hair salon where he works, and was fined $105 for "unauthorized use of a milk crate." Israeli tourist Yoav Kashdia got a $50 citation for taking up two seats on an empty subway train.

The ticketing blitz is part of a quality-of-life crackdown that has unfolded as the nation's largest city looks for new sources of revenue. Although New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg says the city faces an economic crisis and is simply stepping up its enforcement of existing statutes, he has been hammered with criticism that these citations are a form of harassment.

"Welcome to Nitpick City," read a Daily News editorial, criticizing the new policies. "City Hall is nicking ordinary New Yorkers with a tickets for infractions so tiny nobody knew they existed. Forget quality-of-life crimes. Simply living can get you a summons."

Pedro Nazario, an 86-year-old Manhattan resident, was fined $50 by police for feeding pigeons in a park. Sal Boyd, a Greenwich Village merchant, got a $400 citation because officers said there were too many words on the awning over his small store, according to a little-known 1961 ordinance. Jacob Walzer got a $55 fine last week because police determined that the black plastic frame protecting the license plates of his parked car constituted an "improper display."

These stories have appeared in local television and newspaper reports in recent days, creating a major political headache for Bloomberg, who denies that New York is trying to squeeze people with a flurry of unfair citations. He has stressed that New York desperately needs to generate more revenue to plug an estimated $4 billion budget deficit next year. But so far, his efforts have caused him to plummet in the polls.

Barely 34 percent of New Yorkers now approve of his job performance, a record low for a modern mayor, according to several surveys. Bloomberg recently has laid off more than 3,000 city workers; he has proposed major citywide cuts in services, and lobbied successfully to raise property and sales taxes. There have been angry protests over all of these actions, but the quality-of-life citations that police and other agencies have been issuing seem to have struck a nerve of urban outrage here.

"What are they [city officials] trying to prove?" Rivera asked reporters during a sidewalk interview earlier this week. "Whose idea is all this?"

"Don't Blame the Cops!" screamed newspaper ads taken out this month by the New York Police Benevolent Association as part of a $100,000 campaign. Patrick Lynch, the union president, suggests that officers are under pressure to meet daily quotas for new citations and have been pressured to crack down on every imaginable offense. He blasted the mayor for enlisting officers in a "dishonest" push to raise funds.

"This is a crisis for New York City," he said. "This is eroding the trust between the police and the public."

Bloomberg and top police brass deny that there is any plan to flood the city with improper citations. As new stories of the latest violations have surfaced, the mayor has blamed "the sensationalist press" and other adversaries for the growing furor.


"The fact of the matter is that the police are doing a great job at keeping the quality of life in this city where we want it," Bloomberg told a meeting this week of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. "And if, occasionally, there is a ticket that doesn't make a lot of sense - maybe in the case of the mom-to-be - it's a shame that that happens."

Bloomberg repeated his insistence that "we don't have quotas." But Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly "will tell you he has performance measurements," the mayor said.

Under pressure to raise city revenues, the mayor has proposed hiring an additional 300 police officers next year to write up an increased number of traffic tickets. The goal, budget officials have said, is to generate an additional $70 million during the next fiscal year.

New York collected an estimated $379.6 million from parking and other traffic violations last year and issued 8.1 million traffic summonses, according to a report issued yesterday by the Independent Budget Office, a watchdog group. Those revenues dipped slightly from 2001, and cash-strapped New York responded by raising parking and traffic penalties - doubling them, in some instances. The city collected $457.4 million in total fines last year.

City officials said they have no intention of relaxing the new crackdown on quality-of-life violations.

"Don't throw litter on the streets, and you won't have a problem," Bloomberg said this week. "Don't park illegally, and you won't have a problem. But we can't have it both ways. We can't have laws that say 'No Parking Here' and then you complain when we give out tickets."

Josh Getlin writes for the Los Angeles Times, a Tribune Publishing newspaper.


Copyright c 2003, The Baltimore Sun http://www.sunspot.net/news/printedition/bal-te.clubscandal30may30,0,1677776.story?coll=bal-pe-asection









"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878<P>

Comments

  • Josey1Josey1 Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    Bodega Owners Want Help
    Fearing Robberies, Owners Press For New Gun Laws

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    [ Video ]

    WB11: Prime Targets (WB11)
    May 31, 2003 (RealVideo)


    [ Photos ]


    Bodega Owners (Photo by Jennifer S. Altman)
    May 31, 2003



    Bodega Owners (Photo by Jennifer S. Altman)
    May 31, 2003


    By Curtis L. Taylor
    Staff Writer

    May 30, 2003, 6:56 PM EDT


    A group of bodega owners Friday pressed for new gun regulations they say would make it easier for them to protect their businesses after a worker was charged this week with using an illegal handgun to kill a would-be robber.

    "We feel like we are being made to choose between going to jail for using an illegal weapon or being killed by a robber," said Jose B. Fernandez, president of The Bodega Association of the United States, standing on the steps of City Hall.

    The owners, saying their lives and livelihoods were being placed in jeopardy by a lack of police protection, also demanded that the city create a task force to investigate recent robberies.

    City Council Majority Leader Joel Rivera (D-Bronx) said he would pursue legislation to make it easier for bodega owners to receive permits for a licensed handgun, which can now take up to a year.

    "Every single day of their operational lives, bodega owners are the victims of robberies, assaults and sometimes victims of murder," Rivera said.

    "We need to form a task force so that bodega owners can work hand-in-hand with the Police Department to ensure that there is a training program to teach bodega owners how to protect themselves within their stores," Rivera said.

    Rivera also said he will push for increased police protection during a Monday meeting with Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and bodega owners.

    Late Sunday, bodega worker Jose Acosta, 69, allegedly used an illegal handgun to kill Luquarn Washington, 19, as he and two other men were attempting to rob the Leonel Mini-Mart at 2454 Frederick Douglass Blvd., in Harlem. He was charged with misdemeanor criminal possession of a weapon.

    Councilman Larry Seabrook (D-Bronx) said it was at least the fifth incident in the past six months where a would-be robber was shot in someone's home or business. Seabrook said he would lobby for charges against Acosta to be dropped.

    "He was only using equal force to protect his life," Seabrook said.

    In a statement, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said: "The situation is tragic. Mr. Acosta has lived in this country for 25 years, built a life here, and was trying to protect his business. Unfortnately, justice can be unforgiving."
    http://www.nynewsday.com/news/local/brooklyn/nyc-bod0531,0,5470566.story?coll=nyc-manheadlines-brooklyn

    "If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878<P>
  • redcedarsredcedars Member Posts: 919 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Bodega? bodega?

    redcedars
  • jetjet Member Posts: 543 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    did I realy need another reason to not go to ny
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