Good job, drunks, public sex enthusiasts and folks who like to poop outside of bathrooms: Organizers have cancelled the popular Hoboken St. Patrick's Day Parade, noting the city's "inability to protect our spectators, bands and participants." more ›

Fun fact that most renters don't realize? Property owners can (and frequently are) ticketed for the litter outside their buildings. And what offends a ticketing sanitation cop can include furniture and sometimes, as in the case of Queensman Raymond Janson, trash cans out for pick ups. Hey, people gotta make their (totally not real) quotas somehow! more ›

A toast is in order to the High Line today, which just took top honors in terms of drunk people, or at least drunk people who get caught drinking. The Parks Department has given out more summonses this past year—113, to be exact—for illegal drinking in the High Line than at any other park in the city. That's a lot of tickets for a petite seven-acre park—certainly enough to warrant a fresh bottle of bubbly, don't you think? more ›

With little doubt the Select Bus Services (SBS) on First and Second Avenues in Manhattan and the Bx12 route in the Bronx are a real success for the MTA. But it does have its problems. Like, when the receipt printing machine on the street is out of paper and you get a $100 summons for riding the bus without a ticket even though you own an unlimited MetroCard. Which, yeah, happens. Worse, there doesn't seem to be anything you can do in that situation. more ›

The woman who claimed to have been locked up for 32 hours for sitting at the chess tables in Tompkins Square Park and not playing chess wasn't exactly telling the whole story, according to a spokesman for the police. But she is sticking to her guns. more ›

You better be careful what you do and where you do it in the parks, New Yorkers. The police are watching. Apparently when they aren't giving out summons for being unaccompanied by minors in playgrounds and threatening tickets for using motorized boats in a Central Park's boat pond, the police are going and arresting people for sitting at chess tables and not playing chess? According to Neither More Nor Less that is exactly what happened to a woman named Lisa in Tompkins Square Park. In fact, she says she spent 32 hours in the system because she was't playing the King's Game. more ›

After 21-year-old Jason King was fatally struck by a truck backing up through an intersection on East 86th Street, driver Anthony Regisford was issued a summons for failing to secure a load and another one for not having a medical card. But Assembly Member Micah Kellner, author of Elle's Law, pointed out there are laws "on the books for the police and the DA to use as tools to punish reckless driving and take dangerous drivers off the road." Well, ask and ye shall receive, because the driver has also been hit with a summons in violation of Vehicle Traffic Law Section 1146. more ›

Two veteran Staten Island cops justified their overtime pay by writing dozens of fake summonses to make themselves look productive, prosecutors allege. Stephen Gerwer, 39, and Vincent Adinolfi, 40, had to have something to show for their overtime shifts, which are usually assigned for "focused enforcement" actions, like seat belt crackdowns—a source tells the Staten Island Advance that "officers assigned to these shifts do not respond to radio runs, and don’t get sent out on patrol." It's unclear what Gerwer and Adinolfi were doing during their overtime shifts, but investigators say they created the illusion of police work by submitting baseless tickets for moving violations written to actual motorists. more ›

Great news summons aficionados: those outlaw chess players who were ticketed this fall will likely have all their charges dismissed! Seven chess players were given tickets for playing on chess boards in a children's play area in Inwood, which caused much controversy amongst parents in the area whose children had learned to play from the men. Yesterday morning, three of the men were given "adjournments in contemplation of dismissals," meaning the charges will be dropped if they stay out of trouble for six months. more ›

Unicyclist Kyle Peterson, who was ticketed two weeks ago for riding his unicycle on the sidewalk, is suing the NYPD for $3 million for a violation of his constitutional rights. "My plight," Peterson wrote in an email to us, "shows the extreme length the NYPD is going in their war against cyclists," evidently without regard for wheel number. more ›

Earlier this week, it was reported that the NYPD gave summons to seven neighborhood chess players in Inwood. They were ticketed for playing on chess boards in a children's play area off limits to adults without minors in Inwood Hill Park. This caused some controversy among locals, who couldn't fathom why the men who mentored their children in chess were being hounded, but the Knights gave no ground today, defending the ticketing of the Pawns. more ›

Yesterday NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly shrugged off calls for an investigation into the NYPD's ticket quotas, telling reporters, he didn't "see any problem" with two 77th Precinct memos obtained by the Daily News that itemized how many moving violations officers need to hand out in a week. "We have productivity goals, just like your job does, just like any job does," Kelly said yesterday. In light of that, today ABC 7 points us to an incident that was caught on tape last month in Crown Heights, when three men conversing outside a residence at 10 p.m. were stopped by what appear to be rookie cops, ordered to disperse, and then issued summonses for blocking pedestrian traffic. more ›

Bronx NYPD Officer Kevin Driscoll, a 17-year veteran, was recently transferred from a summons detail, where cops get to set their own hours, to a patrol shift. The union claims he was moved because he hadn't made an arrest in two years, but Driscoll believes it is because he refused to throw out a summons written against a friend of his boss', Inspector Dermot Shea of the 44th Precinct. Wait, we thought you couldn't "take care of" tickets anymore anyway? more ›

A Brooklyn man who was given a ticket by police for trespassing outside of his own apartment has joined a class action lawsuit accusing cops of giving out illegal summonses to meet quotas. Lindsey Riddick and his brother Michael were standing outside of Lindsey's Flatbush home on August 18 when police approached them: "I told the officer, 'I live here and I have the key.' You're giving me a summons? Come on, man. You got to be kidding me," he told the Daily News. more ›

When it comes to fines, the Prospect Park Enforcement Patrol officers are slack on summonsing litterbugs, but have no problem ticketing an unleashed pup. And now according to the Brooklyn Paper, they turn a blind eye to law-breaking fishermen as well. more ›

Sometime this past Sunday a man reportedly took to the waters and swam from Manhattan to Roosevelt Island and back... successfully! Well, sort of. He was handed two summons for his East River swim. The Roosevelt Island blog refers to RI's public safety report from that day (which was quite rainy and windy), it states, "Investigation/ Reckless Endangerment—A male swam from the FDR straight across to Roosevelt Island. NYPD/ESU, and PSD responded. Male was fine. EMS refused. NYPD issued subject two summonses." more ›

At around 12:30 a.m. earlier today, a 16-year-old bicyclist was struck by a driver at Webster Avenue and East 188th Street in the Bronx. And the driver was a 23-year-old woman who didn't have a license. WABC 7 reports that the teen was critically injured and taken to St. Barnabas Hospital; the driver had a non-life-threatening injury and was also hospitalized. Also, the driver received a summons for driving without a license. more ›

A former cop is speaking out against the traffic agent who issued a summons to a City Councilman after the Councilman caught him going through stop signs and red lights, sirens blazing, to go to...Dunkin' Donuts. Tim Dillon spoke to WCBS 2 about his run-in with Traffic Agent Daniel Chu while Dillon was a pallbearer at a funeral, "The family was getting ready to transfer the body from the funeral home to the churchThe traffic agent felt that they were all double-parked. There was a confrontation - he started yelling and screaming at the family members." more ›

[UPDATE BELOW] City Councilman Dan Halloran (R-Queens) is demanding a review of every ticket Officer Daniel Chu has ever written after allegedly catching him speeding through a red light and talking on his cell phone with his siren lights on in Whitestone on Monday. Halloran became suspicious, telling the Daily News, "I know the traffic agents have no emergency they have to run to." He followed Chu weaving through traffic, and eventually found him parked illegally in front of a Dunkin' Donuts. Chu came out and caught Halloran taking photos of his car, and immediately issued Halloran a $165 ticket for blocking a crosswalk. more ›

More than 85% of people stopped and frisked by the NYPD are released without an arrest or summons. But regardless of innocence, the NYPD has been keeping a database of personal information on more than 100,000 people who are stopped, questioned, frisked, and released each year. Today the NYCLU has filed a class action lawsuit [pdf] to get the NYPD to seal all personal records of people who were stopped and frisked, were arrested or issued a summons, and whose cases "ended either in dismissal or only the payment of a fine for a noncriminal violation." The lead plaintiffs are two NYC residents who were stopped and frisked by police officers but subsequently cleared of any wrongdoing. In this video, they explain what happened: more ›

An eight-months pregnant woman was recently given a $75 summons for traveling between subway cars. And why, given her condition, was she traveling between subway cars? Because she couldn't find a seat on the 1 train! Nora Hsu told the NY Post, "I told the cop, 'Cut me some slack. I'm 32 weeks pregnant, and I'm just trying to get home.' I was out of breath." But the officer allegedly told her, "It doesn't matter... You know what you did was illegal ... You'll have to come with me." Hear that everyone: Pregnant ladies are just like regular people. more ›

Here, have a cup of outrage: On the morning of March 22nd, one Rodney Seymour was riding his bike by 10th Street on Third Avenue when the door of a box truck swung open, knocking him to the street. Unlike last month's tragically fatal cyclist dooring in the Bronx, Seymour survived, but he hurt his shoulder and head in the fall. "I was in a little pain and the truck driver suggested I call the cops," Seymour tells Streetsblog. "He was very cooperative." Care to guess who wasn't so cooperative? more ›

Here's the latest report of someone being ticketed for taking up more than one seat: In his "About New York" column, Jim Dwyer writes about a 24-year-old who landed a $50 ticket for his 1:30 a.m. subway seat greediness on a nearly empty 2 train from Manhattan to Crown Heights. Ryan David LaMont said at the Atlantic Avenue stop, "An N.Y.P.D. officer stepped into the car, pointed at me and another guy who was sitting on the other end of the train. He told us, 'Get off the train.'" more ›

Councilmembers are pushing the NYPD to abolish a database containing the names of New Yorkers who have been stopped, frisked, and released without charges. With the NYPD stopping and frisking a record number of people last year, Council Speaker Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan) and Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. (D-Queens) wrote a letter urging Police Commissioner Ray Kelly to get rid of files on individuals who haven't been arrested or given summonses, arguing the current policy "raises significant privacy-right concerns and suggests that these innocent people are more likely to be targeted in future criminal investigations." more ›

A Bronx cop claims a superior punched him for refusing to write bogus summonses. "I'm not going to give the bread deliveryman a ticket before going into the deli and telling him," said Officer Anthony Minoia, 46, who is planning on filing suit against the city for the violent incident. "I didn't forget what it was like to be a civilian before I got a badge." more ›

Backing up longstanding rumors of NYPD quotas, a cop claims police officers are required to issue 20 summonses and make 1 arrest per month so commanding officers appear to maintain low crime rates in their precincts. "At the end of the night you have to come back with something," Officer Adil Polanco told ABC. "You have to write somebody, you have to arrest somebody, even if the crime is not committed, the number's there. So our choice is to come up with the number." more ›