A funeral in the Bronx was upset by the ridiculousness of local parking ticket officers recently. This is one event out of many where these officers issue tickets to one particular neighborhood in the Bronx at 2 1/2 times the average rate. While the practice may boost revenues for the city, it is drawing the ire of local residents and state Rep. Jeff Klein.
From The Daily News:
City parking enforcement agents are making life unbearable for mourners in the Bronx, funeral home officials and a state senator charged yesterday.
The agents slapped summonses on cars with roof-mounted funeral flags parked outside a borough funeral home and two local churches during funeral masses, said Robert Ruggiero, the owner of F. Ruggiero & Sons in Morris Park.
The agents even towed mourners' cars, Ruggiero said.
"Luckily, we managed to stop the towing, but the traffic agent with the tow-truck driver didn't quash the tickets," Ruggiero said of the most recent incident at St. Francis Xavier Church.
"This is not a night club or a disco," he said. "They are people who are very upset at a time of deep emotional distress."
Personally I feel that these light blue uniformed "cops" are generally obsessive when it comes to their jobs. The amount of tickets issued all over the city is way out of hand and needs to be curbed. Illegally parked cars should be given summonses, but when you have cars in a funeral being towed, the only discipline needs to be directed at the ones writing the tickets, not the other way around.
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