Rules for thee but not for me!
Last week, Streetsblog NYC reported that North Brooklyn’s own 94th precinct created their own parking spaces via painted yellow lines on the sidewalk. These lines popped up in front of the precinct’s station at Meserole Avenue.
Apparently, the job isn’t yet finished, as someone was painting additional lines on Lorimer Street as of this morning. While police officers taking up sidewalk space to park is not a new phenomenon, the addition of paint is a new (illegal) twist.
“Car owners — even the police — aren’t allowed to paint curbs or sidewalks, according to city law,” reports Streetsblog. “DOT regulations define ‘defacement’ as ‘when a person paints, prints, writes or attaches, in any manner, an advertisement or printed material to the sidewalk, curb or roadway.’”
Greenpointers visited the 94th precinct to find out more—station staff did not respond to our questions and redirected us to the Community Affairs number.
“People are too curious,” a staffer huffed as she wrote down the number.
As of press time, we have not received a comment from the office of Community Affairs.
Anyone with a car in Greenpoint knows how challenging it can be to find a parking spot, a process often hampered by constant film shoots and expensive garages. So the irony of the cops breaking the very laws they are obligated to enforce feels especially egregious.
Another egregious element of this story? “Almost 80 percent of the 27 vehicles belonging to NYPD employees and parked around the precinct had at least one red light or speeding ticket on its record,” said Streetsblog.
It’s an issue that resonates with our local elected officials. During a meeting last year, City Council Member Lincoln Restler took the NYPD to task for illegally parking in front of most of their precincts.
While it may seem like small potatoes, keeping the sidewalks clear goes a long way for those with mobility issues or parents pushing around strollers. Additionally, a federal court ruled in 2022 that the NYPD needed to do more to enforce parking violations to make sure sidewalks were accessible according to the American with Disabilities Act. With last week’s news about new ADA-accessible updates made to Metropolitan Avenue-Lorimer Street station, let’s keep that momentum up.
Cops break more laws than they enforce.
It’s been like this for the past 5 decades, now it’s a problem. People please something else to complain about like going after your local public officials who receive campaign donations from developers to change zoning so that they can build luxury apartments and charge you sky high rents. You complain about the “Rent being too damn high!”, go after your local politicians.
On another related issue, if the DMV checked on officers and private cars, it would be rare to see them get any moving violations.
Now with automated speeding and red light cameras where the PO can’t talk the PO on duty out of a ticket they are starting to see they are automated ticketed at an incredible rate.
I was hit by a police car back in the day on a call and get a major dent in my car. I went to the pct. to report it and they said they have no record of it happening.
This same precinct does nothing about the length of Manhattan Ave north of Dupont (and sometimes a block or two more) being used as a construction staging area inevitably for one of the developers building a high rise on the waterfront. Instead of lining up conga lines of dump trucks, flatbeds and (this morning, as of 7am) cement trucks one of the streets with empty warehouses closer to the sites, Manhattan Ave’s north facing lane (on a tight two lane street with parking on both sides, and food sheds) is being used for this purpose … violations: breaking the idling law on the books, noise, pollution, blocking the bus stop @ Dupont, traffic being forced to use oncoming lane to get past, danger to pedestrians trying to cross the street, loss of income to convenience stores, restaurants and other business whose customers can’t get near them (or even see their storefronts), etc. I’ve been calling 311 on this issue since last summer. Local precinct does nothing (same precinct painting parking spaces in front of their building in this article!), tell me “well, we have construction in front of our building, so …” ROFLOL Also contacted Lincoln Restler and Emily Gallagher and sent documentation. Also tried to get ahold of someone at local community board 1, but their phone number is a recording. It’s all so pathetic. Wondering if this is a now accepted regular thing here in N Greenpoint. Starting to dislike this neighborhood intensely, as a result. No one really gives a damn here – all about the $5K to rent empty boxes in those high rises (I know, I did a few tours in them) … good luck filling them up with the quality of life diminishing here by the minute.