BY DORIAN BLOCK
Parking enforcement agents who plaster parking tickets on windshields across the borough need to follow their own rules, frustrated merchants in one struggling commercial area charge.
Storeowners in Westchester Square are angry because NYPD parking enforcement vehicles clog the metered spaces on their commercial strip for entire days and weekends, leaving little room for customers. "For the last three months, they've just been parking on both sides of the street and nobody could do business," said Louis Buoninfante, who has owned Westchester Square Jewelers for 40 years. "They can care less and the customers can't find parking."
The Association of the Merchants and Business Professionals of Westchester Square, Community Board 10 and local politicians have stepped in to try to negotiate with the police department, which oversees the agents.
Kenneth Kearns, district manager of Community Board 10, said he is trying to set up a meeting with a supervisor in February.
"The problem is they don't have a place to put their vehicles," he said. "It's a conundrum of city government. Enforce these regulations for everyone else, but when it comes to agency vehicle parking, we're not going to provide you with help." A Bronx Boro News request for information from the police department was not answered as of deadline.
John Bonizio, head of the Association of the Merchants and Business Professionals of Westchester Square, said he does not understand how an agency that provides so much revenue for the city can't have its own parking spaces.
He has heard dozens of complaints on the issue from store owners and residents for several years. The officers began parking the cars and vans on a side street, St. Raymond's Ave., which temporarily relieved the problem, but Buoninfante said they were back last week.
"On the one hand, you have a city agency putting money into the development of a Business Improvement District on Westchester Square. Then you have another agency parking vehicles in 16 metered spaces," Bonizio said. "I don't understand why the right hand isn't doing what the left is doing."
Parking enforcement agents who plaster parking tickets on windshields across the borough need to follow their own rules, frustrated merchants in one struggling commercial area charge.
Storeowners in Westchester Square are angry because NYPD parking enforcement vehicles clog the metered spaces on their commercial strip for entire days and weekends, leaving little room for customers. "For the last three months, they've just been parking on both sides of the street and nobody could do business," said Louis Buoninfante, who has owned Westchester Square Jewelers for 40 years. "They can care less and the customers can't find parking."
The Association of the Merchants and Business Professionals of Westchester Square, Community Board 10 and local politicians have stepped in to try to negotiate with the police department, which oversees the agents.
Kenneth Kearns, district manager of Community Board 10, said he is trying to set up a meeting with a supervisor in February.
"The problem is they don't have a place to put their vehicles," he said. "It's a conundrum of city government. Enforce these regulations for everyone else, but when it comes to agency vehicle parking, we're not going to provide you with help." A Bronx Boro News request for information from the police department was not answered as of deadline.
John Bonizio, head of the Association of the Merchants and Business Professionals of Westchester Square, said he does not understand how an agency that provides so much revenue for the city can't have its own parking spaces.
He has heard dozens of complaints on the issue from store owners and residents for several years. The officers began parking the cars and vans on a side street, St. Raymond's Ave., which temporarily relieved the problem, but Buoninfante said they were back last week.
"On the one hand, you have a city agency putting money into the development of a Business Improvement District on Westchester Square. Then you have another agency parking vehicles in 16 metered spaces," Bonizio said. "I don't understand why the right hand isn't doing what the left is doing."
