In particular, councilmembers were up in arms over those neon stickers the Sanitation Department affixes to cars that don’t get moved on alternate-side parking days. Lest your Hyundai become a vehicular Hester Prynne, the lawmakers want Sanitation to reconsider the policy, which they apparently now will.
“It’s really cruel and unusual,” Councilman David Greenfield, a champion of the anti-sticker movement, said, according to an account of the hearing sent out by his office.
“Even with our worst criminals, we don’t ask them to wear stickers on their heads saying: ‘Caught! Courtesy of the NYPD.’ Why are people who accidentally park their cars on the wrong side of the street worse than convicted criminals?” (Greenfield was said to have ‘exclaimed’ that last bit.)
Also weighing in: Councilman James Vacca, who’s quoted as saying, “People have gotten the message, and the message is ‘get going or get fined.’ I don’t agree with the premise that the sticker is needed…”
Councilwoman Letitia James, Chairwoman of the Sanitation and Solid Waste Management Committee, concurred: “I don’t believe that government should be in the business of publicly humiliating its citizens,” she said