Give ’em a brrrreak!
Parking agents slapped East Village drivers with parking tickets for failing to move their cars — even though they were frozen stuck in several inches of ice, angry neighbors said.
A street leak frozen by this week’s bone-chilling “polar vortex” trapped cars parked on East 12th Street near Avenue A, where residents were forced to sit in cars or risk getting a fine on Thursday morning.
Some drivers were handed $65 tickets — which neighbors called just plain cold-hearted.
“I couldn’t get my car out right away and when I told them that they were like, ‘I already started writing the ticket,” said David Griffith, a 29-year-old, who works in the nightlife biz.
“The ice was over where I was parked, [they] could see there was ice where I was,” he said.
He added, “They shouldn’t be giving out tickets when you can’t move out your car.”
Griffith had tried to move his car earlier but feared it would ruin his transmission, he said.
The frozen water was caused by a crack in the street that has been causing neighbors trouble for more than a year – but the city won’t fix it, neighbors said.
Beverly Lefhowitz, a psychotherapist who was forced to wait in her Honda Civic, called it a major inconvenience.
“It’s a hassle. I had appointments today I had to cancel because someone told me they were giving tickets,” Lefhowitz said.
Neighbor Michael Velez said he had spent hours helping a neighbor move a Saab frozen stuck, he said.
“It took hours, almost two hours, to take it out. It was froze! This leak is almost two years [old] and now it’s worse. It’s a lot of water now,” Velez said.
Added driver Wesley Boone, 60, “They got you in a catch-22 situation.”