Parking 'Grace' Gets OK

By DAVID SEIFMAN, City Hall Bureau Chief

Brushing aside a stern warning from Mayor Bloomberg that they were inviting "chaos," the City Council yesterday added a five-minute grace period to virtually all parking regulations.

But even before the vote, Bloomberg slammed the legislation as "misguided" and vowed to veto it.

"A five-minute grace period is only going to lead to chaos, an enormous increase, I think, in contested tickets and arguments," the mayor argued.

"Whose watch are you going to use? And the Sanitation Department, when do they start removing cars so they can clean the streets?"

But the new rules passed by an overwhelming 47-2 margin, and Council Speaker Christine Quinn -- usually a Bloomberg ally -- declared her members will "absolutely" override the veto.

The new regulations -- which would take effect 90 days after the council overrides the mayor's veto -- would allow motorists at Muni-Meters to park an extra five minutes.

The grace period won't apply at other meters that don't give paper receipts.

Drivers rushing to move their vehicles to comply with alternate-side changeovers would also get the extra five minutes, as would all others except those cited for safety violations, such as parking in front of a hydrant.

Parking violations -- excluding those for going through a red light -- brought in $560 million in revenue to the city in fiscal 2009. The projection for this year, fiscal 2010, is $629 million.

Councilman John Liu (D-Queens), the comptroller-elect, said as much as the city needs the money, parking agents should give drivers a break. "Don't be standing there getting the person at 8:01 a.m.," he said.

Several legislators have complained for years that their constituents are being buried under mountains of parking tickets.

Councilman Simcha Felder (D-Brooklyn) said that 28,000 of the 1.4 million summonses given out for alternate-side violations in 2008 were written at the exact minute the regulation kicked in and another 276,000 were written within five minutes.

"We are passing laws for the purpose of making sure the city has a little . . . common sense and decency when they issue tickets," said Felder.