NY: City Council bill wants to ban parking violations stickers, says fines are enough

A Brooklyn City Councilman is going after the hated neon shame stickers slapped on cars parked on the wrong side of the street.

"It's a pretty punitive form of punishment. I mean, what's next? We're going to start slashing people's tires when they don't park on the correct side?" said Councilman David Greenfield, who represents parking-starved Borough Park and Midwood.

Greenfield plans to introduce legislation tomorrow that would abolish the hard-to-remove green stickers that sanitation agents paste on errant cars that violate alternate side parking rules.

"First of all, it's a safety hazard," Greenfield said. "How the heck are you supposed to drive and look out your window when you got this big thing stuck there? Second, it's punitive. And, third we have very fundamental principle of justice in this country that you're innocent until you're proven guilty and these people are not prove guilty."

The city started using the stickers in the mid 1980s to motivate New Yorkers to move for street sweepers

"Stickers have been a very effective means of conveying to motorists the importance of moving their cars so that streets can be swept," said sanitation department spokesman Vito Turso.

But Greenfield says the $45 to $65 fines attached to alternate side tickets are deterrent enough.

"We're not doing this to people who park at pumps, who are blocking bus stops, who are blocking intersections," Greenfield said. "If somehow you offended the sanitation police ... you have sinned so gravely that they have to not only give you a ticket, they must now slap a sticker on that's impossible to remove, shaming you and your entire family with you."

Greenfield's bill is the latest effort by a City Council to chip away at hated traffic rules. The council last year over-rode a mayoral veto to give drivers a five-minute grace period to move their cars.

Council is considering a bill on Tuesday that force agents to void Muni-Meter tickets if the driver arrives with a paid receipt while the ticket is being written