Mayor Bloomberg’s crackdown on city-issued parking permits doesn’t apply to the celebrity-studded Midtown Kabbalah Centre – even as police, firefighters and teachers are having their parking passes yanked.
The spiritual home of Madonna, Alex Rodriguez and other celebrities has 10 permits that allow for parking in the loading zone in front of the East 48th Street building.
Last year, the city issued 5,369 permits to 883 “social-service organizations,” such as Access-a-Ride, Meals on Wheels, the Red Cross, volunteer ambulance services – and the Kabbalah Centre.
There are about 400 permits given annually to clergy and houses of worship, but religious groups usually get just one or two such passes – not 10. So far, the city has no plans to cut the number of placards given to private groups as prescribed by city law, a City Hall spokesman said.
But with the city slashing the number of placards given to its workers, it’s time to take a hard look at other groups who get the benefit, said Wiley Norvell of Transportation Alternatives, an advocacy group critical of placard abuse.
“There really can’t be any rationale for giving parking perks to private citizens,” Norvell said. “It doesn’t make sense. These sorts of permits should be at the top of the chopping block.”
City officials initially denied that religious institutions, including the Kabbalah Centre, got the plum passes.
“They have to be fakes,” a spokesman insisted.
The following day – after The Post provided photos of the parking permits in cars left outside the center – officials admitted that the center was given the permits.
Several of the cars sat outside the center for nearly six hours, violating the permits’ three-hour limit.
All told, the city chopped more than 25,000 permits in May, including thousands of NYPD, FDNY and teacher passes, after a lengthy survey found there were more than 144,000 city- and government-issued parking placards in circulation.
rblau@nypost.com