Covert Parking Tix Surge on S.I.

About two weeks ago, around 9pm, I was walking from the S.I. Mall to my parent's house on xxxx Loop. When I got to the Loop, I saw a NYPD cruiser ticket a 1950's-style hot rod. Neither officer got out of their cruiser, placed the ticket through their opened car window.

After the cruiser left the loop, I looked at the ticket. Expired inspection sticker. The hot rod's inspection sticker was a few months past. Not odd.

But what was odd was that I saw that cop cruiser in the Loop at all. And the time, late evening, around 9pm. I've lived on xxxx Loop since the mid 80's. I've never seen anyone get a parking ticket in the Loop before. Neither have I or my father. Nor a neighbor before.

I mean that's one of the benefits of living in this mostly white middle-class neighborhood. At least, used to be, anyway. Not having to worry about traffic agents or police officers coming around your neighborhood. Trying to fill their parking ticket quotas for the day.

Then, at my day job, a co-worker who lives on S.I., told me he got a ticket for double parking in his residential area. Happened about 2 months ago. Again, mostly white middle-class. He had double-parked before often. Never got a ticket before.

At least, S.I. residents who live in the mostly white middle-class neighborhoods don't have to deal with daily visits from traffic agents and police. Looking to fill their daily quotas.

I'll take bit-by-bit covert ticketing over daily harassment, any day. I wouldn't want to own a car in any of NYC's low income minority neighborhoods. Or mostly immigrant neighborhoods.

The neighborhood, where my parents' business is located, Bushwick, Brooklyn, is predominantly Hispanic and low-income. There is a constant cat-and-mouse game played by residents and traffic agents and police officers. And, of course, the usual monthly parking tix blitz.

In the last tix blitz, my father got a completely bogus ticket for having a thin plastic frame around his license plate. Allegedly, obscuring his plate number. I didn't know that many of our police officers and traffic agents had such poor eye sight. Any thin plastic frame around any plate completely makes the plate # impossible for them to read.

The PTF: "Eat more carrots! You blind bats."

P.S. A parking tip for my fellow S.I. residents. Take off that frame on your plate. Do it now!