Next time you find yourself in a virtually empty subway car, pretend it’s rush hour or it might cost you a $50 fine.
Regular subway rider Stephen Lamarch figured there’d be enough elbow room to stretch his 5-foot-6 frame over two car seats because there was only one other person in the Manhattan-bound F train car at 2:30 a.m. Thursday.
The unsuspecting 21-year-old was on his way to his 4 a.m. shift at Rockefeller Center, where he works as a grounds landscaper, when he was hauled off the near-empty train by two plainclothes cops at the Union Turnpike station in Kew Gardens.
“They stepped on the train and said, ‘NYPD. You’re coming with us,’ ” he said.
The befuddled West Hempstead, L.I., man said he had no idea what was wrong.
On the platform the officers asked Lamarch a battery of questions to prove his identity and his destination.
They also asked if he had outstanding warrants or possessed any illegal drugs.
After detaining him for what he said was about 15 minutes, they issued him a summons for taking up more than one subway car seat.
Subway rules ban taking up more than one seat per fanny.
The summons reads: “Did observe respondent laying across three seats.”
But Lamarch denies it, saying he took up only two seats, which he did not think was a crime at 2:30 in the morning in an almost vacant car.
The whole ordeal made Lamarch more than 15 minutes late for his shift and resulted in an even costlier day. He was docked an hour’s pay.
“I was taken off the train on my way to work, to earn a living. It’s like a wrench in the gears and on top of it, I have to pay,” Lamarch said.
“I see stuff like this in the papers and I think it’s ridiculous, how could that happen?” he said incredulously. “And now it’s happened to me.
“It’s like they knew I’d pay it and not make a big deal about it.”
Lamarch said he will fight the summons.
But according to a police spokesman, the cops did the right thing.
“The New York City Police Department credits the enforcement of petty offenses with a 14.5 percent decline in major crimes in the transit system in 2003,” a police spokesman said.