By: Noah Robinson
The NYPD is kicking off a crackdown on abuse of city-issued parking placards with increased fines and violations starting this week. City Council Speaker Corey Johnson pitched the idea of tightened enforcement in November and, surprisingly, received majority support from the rest of the City Council.
Other units will be out specifically tracking for the misuse of placards, and enforcing two tickets to violators: one for illegal parking and the other for the misuse of the placard. The enforcement unit that cracks down on placards already have a list of almost three dozen areas where the worst abuse of placards occur, for example, around City Hall and the federal courthouse and jail. That list was shared with rank-and-file in an email sent out by police leaders this week.
The email notice from police brass to rank-and-file cops: “WARNING!! Due to new laws passed by the city council on placard abuse, multiple units are tasked to enforce and document the abusers by taking photos of cars, plates and placards to record and submit to [the Department of Investigation]. Can’t stress this enough for you to tell your personnel that this will commence Monday 1/6/2020! Be Safe!”
But what exactly does this new crackdown do for our city, for the people living in it? Does this new focus actually help New Yorkers in their daily life? Some would argue it does not:
“The whole thing is ridiculous. I think we have bigger things to worry about. You got bail reform. You got bad people on the street. They’re having a hate problem in the Jewish areas. Maybe they should be guarding the synagogues instead of going after parking placard problems. Maybe they should put more guys in Morningside Park. They should use their traffic cops,” a high-ranking police source stated, referring to antisemitic crimes in the city and the murder of Barnard College freshman Tessa Majors.
Is the abuse of placards really so detrimental to our city’s life? Or are there other problems that need to be addressed first? A law enforcement source explained that the placards allow its holders to defy a few city parking regulations during their job duties, but cops sometimes use them to “park by their homes and when going places off duty,” such as Yankee Stadium, Madison Square Garden and Bloomingdales. Some sources even expressed that cops should be allowed to continue bending this type of law.
