The NYPD is on the hunt for subway seat hogs.
A Fashion Institute of Technology student and a waiter at a Brooklyn diner were each recently nailed by graveyard-shift transit cops, who hit them with $50 fines for taking up more than one seat on virtually empty trains at around 2:30 a.m.
Josh Stevens, of Harlem, a recent transplant from Cincinnati, was stunned when he was slapped with back-to-back summonses at the 96th Street station on Nov. 19 and 20, in what police told him was a quota-driven sting.
“After the second time, I asked the officer, ‘Really, what’s going on? Why is this happening?’ ” Stevens said. “And he told me, ‘Recently we’ve been told to write tickets instead of give warnings for this type of thing.’ He said they need to hit quotas.”
Three weeks later, police were still at it when Andres Alzamora, 58, was cited for taking up more then one seat — even though the waiter said he just had his legs in front of the space next to him.
He was stunned when police told him to step out of the 2 train at around 2:30 a.m. at the 96th Street station so he could be given the summons.
“There was no one else in the subway with me,” he said. “They just want to make money.”
MTA rules — which are enforced by the NYPD’s Transit division — say a passenger may not “occupy more than one seat” or “place his or her foot on a seat.”
Stevens said that both times he was ticketed he was in a nearly deserted car with only one or two other riders. And while he said he definitely was stretched out the first time, the next day he merely crossed his legs.
“The officer said it was a danger because people can get robbed on the subway if they fall asleep, which I didn’t. Give me a break,” he said.
He is fighting the tickets.
Stevens said the police should do this kind of enforcement during the rush hour, and not in the “dead of night.”
An NYPD spokesman denied that cops were cracking down on subway riders taking up more than one seat. Year-to-date figures show that there were 760 such summonses issued in 2008 and 784 issued as of early this month.
“I’d like to know how much money they’re making from people by doing this,” Stevens said.