City officials say are looking into ways to give millions of dollars back to drivers who paid $165 parking fines for infractions that weren’t actually illegal.
Councilman Vincent Gentile said he is in talks with the city’s finance department and Comptroller Scott Stringer to figure out if there is a way to get drivers their cash back.
“The city shouldn’t be keeping money that belongs to drivers,” said Gentile.
The NYPD admitted on Wednesday that it had been giving out $165 tickets to drivers who park in front of mid-block curb cuts, even though it’s been legal since 2009 to park in front of a cut that isn’t in a crosswalk.
A statistician poured through city data and found that the city issued more than $4 million in tickets to drivers for the not-illegal practice between August 2013 and March of this year.
Meanwhile, the NYPD claims they are educating the rank-and-file not to issue these pedestrian ramp tickets.
A statement that the NYPD sent out last week says that the department is telling its cops not to ticket drivers who park at mid-block curb cuts.
“The department sent a training message to all officers clarifying the rule change and has communicated to commanders of precincts with the highest number of summonses, informing them of the issues within their command,” said the statement, which the NYPD first sent to statistician Ben Wellington last week.
City officials say that’s not good enough, and that the department needs to systematically get the message out.
“All precinct commanders need to be made aware and make the announcement at role call and traffic enforcement agents need to be told also,”said Gentile. “I’m going to make sure they do this.”