Yankees fans who drive to the stadium on game days are furious over being double-charged to park — $70 for three hours — in the taxpayer-subsidized garages around it.
Fans blame balky ticket machines and parking attendants who refuse to let them leave — even if they produce a time-stamped receipt showing they paid.
“It’s not right,” said Manny Adamita, a Staten Island restaurateur who was recently forced to pay twice after a rain-shortened July 23 night game. “I’m never coming back to Yankee Stadium again. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth.”
Adding insult to injury, the company that owns the garages, Bronx Parking Development Co., got $237 million in tax-exempt bonds as part of a 2007 deal with the city, and it owes the city $48 million in unpaid rent, taxes and other fees, according to the Parks Department.
Neither the company nor its partner, Quik Park, which operates the garages, returned calls seeking comment. The city Department of Consumer Affairs, which issues licenses to parking garages in the five boroughs, fielded 45 complaints against Quik Park-run garages last year. The Better Business Bureau gave Quik Park an “F” rating on its Web site.
When Adamita pulled into the River Avenue Quik Park across from Gate 8 for a game against the Texas Rangers, he took the ticket from an attendant, parked his car and then went to a validation machine. He said he fed his ticket and credit card into the machine, which returned his card and spit out a receipt — but not the original validation ticket.
Five innings later, he attempted to leave. But attendants told him he needed his validation ticket and that his receipt wouldn’t do. He would have to pay a second time for a ticket to exit, they said.
“They were really nasty,” he told The Post. “I could have physically choked someone at that moment, but I restrained myself.”
“It’s not right… I’m never coming back to Yankee Stadium again. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth.”
A sympathetic police officer told him, “They do it to everybody. It’s a scam.”
The “double pay” play brought the night’s total tab for Adamita and a friend to $400, including tickets, tolls and food, he said.
Philip Rolon, a Bronx native who now lives in Albany, was also doubled up last May.
“If you have a receipt, they should honor the receipt,” Rolon said. “But they don’t care. They wouldn’t honor it.”
Even The Post struck out. When a reporter tried to validate his ticket Thursday in the same garage, the machine didn’t return the ticket until an attendant intervened. When he tried to leave with just a receipt, an attendant balked: “You cannot leave this garage without your ticket.”
Another attendant explained that Quik Park was trying to prevent theft — that drivers could give away their receipts to other fans who might use them to skip out on their bill.
“This happens all the time,” said one police officer of attendants forcing fans to pay double. “They’re not going to budge.”
A Yankees spokeswoman would only say, “We don’t run the garages and never have.”