A Queens police precinct’s parking policy turns its “Cop of the Month” honorees into scofflaws.
A painted blue rectangle on the sidewalk near the corner of 91st Ave. and 168th St. in Jamaica is a prize for the finest of the 103rd Precinct’s finest.
The prime parking spot, directly across from the station house, is marked by a professionally-printed plaque attached to a chain-link fence.
But the NYPD’s own Patrol Guide — a manual of rules and regulations for officer conduct — explicitly forbids sidewalk parking of personal vehicles.
“Members of the service are reminded that there is no valid verifiable defense for parking their vehicle (with or without a Restricted Parking Permit [police placard]) … [on a] sidewalk,” the manual reads.
The Patrol Guide also reminds officers they are not allowed to double park their vehicles, park in bus or bike lanes, or in “no standing” zones.
The NYPD regulations echo city law, which prohibits parking on sidewalks, double-parking, and parking in “no standing” zones, regardless of whether or not a car has an official agency placard.
As at many other police precincts in the city, the rules don’t seem to apply at the stationhouse in downtown Jamaica.
Next to the 103rd′s Cop of the Month’s spot — without blue paint but still on the sidewalk — is a parking space assigned to the commanding officer of the precinct. On the other side, there’s a sidewalk parking spot for the head of the 103rd′s detective squad.
Beside those, four official-looking plaques mark spots on the sidewalk for the precinct’s lieutenants.
All the plaques are attached to a chain-link fence surrounding a commercial parking lot, which was largely vacant when the Us.Mistertruth visited the precinct last week.
“The police officers could all have parking for their cars if only they were willing to part with some US currency,” longtime area resident Tom Hillgardner told The News, referencing the commercial lot, run by Jamaica First Parking.
“But it does not appear that they want to do that.”
Instead, the stretch of 91st Ave. adjacent to the precinct house is signed for police parking on the curbside. The sidewalks on both sides of the avenue — a short one-way street — were impassable due to cars parked nose-out on the sidewalk.
On 168th St. just north of the precinct house, signs with a similar design to the “Cop of the Month” plaque hung from the chain link fence, declaring the east side of the street for “authorized vehicle parking.”
That same stretch of street is a “no parking” zone, according to official Department of Transportation signage — though city parking law allows some placard parking in those zones, so long as those vehicles are not on the sidewalk.
A Department of Transportation spokesperson declined to comment on the parking situation at the 103rd Precinct house. An NYPD spokesperson did not respond to multiple requests for comment on parking at the precinct.
Asked in April about sidewalk parking around the 28th Precinct in Harlem — where one man’s 232 parking complaints to the city in March went unanswered — an NYPD spokesperson told The News the department was taking the situation seriously.
“We listen to our communities and we know that parking around our precincts is a persistent concern,” the spokesperson said in a statement earlier this month. “It is difficult due to the number of persons who work in a precinct and the amount of parking available.”
City Council members recently have taken up police parking and general enforcement of parking regulations. At an April meeting of the Council’s Transportation and Infrastructure committee, NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell told city lawmakers that curbing police parking abuse was one of his priorities.
“It’s probably one of my biggest pet peeves, parking on sidewalks,” Chell said.
“The NYPD has the responsibility to both enforce and follow parking regulations,” the committee’s chairwoman, Council Member Selvena Brooks-Powers, told The News this week.
She noted that at the April meeting, “NYPD leaders promised to improve the Department’s approach to this issue — internally and externally. I look forward to holding the NYPD accountable to this commitment and working with the administration to curb parking violations citywide.”