Fight Your Tickets, Bushwick!
Anyone whose responsibility it is to maintain their sidewalk in Bushwick knows how difficult it can be. The trash accumulation here is epic. I am always picking up bits of trash and do a full sweeping once a week. My tree pit is a magnet for condiment packages, tissues, and of course, dog shit. In October, I got a $100 litter ticket on a Saturday afternoon, just hours after I had actually done one of my full sweeps. Despite an experienced neighbor’s insistence that it was futile to fight the ticket, I followed the appeal instructions to the letter.
Today, three and a half months later, I got a letter from the Environmental Control Board, in which the judge wrote:
“I find Respondent’s testimony credible. In light of the facts and circumstances described above, I find Respondent has established that reasonable efforts were made to keep the area free from debris. Therefore the Notice of Violation is dismissed.”
As long as you are slightly less lazy than the bureaucracy, you can win. Fight all your tickets, property owners! It costs $3 to send something certified… if you have time to get to the post office and wait for that bureaucracy’s rusty gears to grind.
January 23rd, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Congratulations, Jeremy! Thanks for telling us how to fight a ticket. Since you and I go to the same post office, I thought I’d pass along a tip I learned: the best way to get fast service at the Metro Bushwick post office is to arrive 15 minutes before it closes. Once closing time nears, those jokers start to MOVE. They start multi-tasking and they’ll open up windows to make the line go faster, etc. The line is usually short anyway because a lot of people try to go to the post office early in the day. My advice is to wait, wait, wait, and stroll in just before them mofos get ready to go home.
January 23rd, 2008 at 5:27 pm
I am a landlord and i have a place on grove near bushwick ave., i have the walk by traffic from the gates ave stop, so people finish their dorito bags and a variety of other snacks that they finish as they are passing my place and inevitably throw on the sidewalk by my house,no matter how much my super sweeps there is always the stray wrapper that we miss.. i have gotten countless tickets over the last couple of years with fines easily totalling over $1000, i never thought i could actually fight and win. thx for the advice..bloomberg is squeezing every last penny from homeowners..
January 23rd, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Way to go Jeremy!
Here goes another camera story. I am 2 for 2 with these quota crooks.
The first ticket occurred last winter. I had wood neatly stacked by the curb. My cameras caught the citation officer kicking the pieces apart on the sidewalk and giving me a ticket for it. I sent in the incriminating pics and hence it was dismissed
The 2nd incident occurred shortly after. An officer pulled up in her car, ignored my worker waiting on the stairs, walked past them and placed a summons on my building. The fact is that we were loading my truck and were stacking items on the curb to be loaded. She pulled up yakking on her cell phone and talked non-stop on it from the point of pulling up till pulling away. I show that all on film and that too was dismissed. All she had to do was ask what was going on.
These agencies have a serious agenda. It is obviously to write as many summons as possible regardless of innocence or possible explanatory conditions.
January 23rd, 2008 at 7:52 pm
Hooray Jeremy. No ticket yet, but your tree pit sounds familiar. Seriously.
Owners of Bushwick unite.
January 24th, 2008 at 10:00 am
good job!
and Complex, you’ve just made me change my mind about camera use. i dislike the idea of cameras everywhere, the big-brother sort of situation it sets up. but if they’re being used to “watch the watchers,” that seems like a good idea (esp since you have been able to prove their culpability)!
January 24th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Cameras in a network operated by people with a license to fine/tax/beat/imprison/kill = bad. Cameras in the hands of individuals watching over their own property or voluntary organizations watching over their neighborhoods = good.