DSNY Commissioner Kathryn Garcia recently responded to City Comptroller Scott Stringer’s letter urging the agency to review its overnight ticketing policy, which has had an impact on businesses along Jamaica Avenue (pictured.)
Photo By Michael V. Cusenza
Despite pressure from the city comptroller’s office and a powerful civic organization, enforcement practices, specifically overnight ticketing protocol, will not change, according to a letter sent late last month from Sanitation Department Commissioner Kathryn Garcia to Comptroller Scott Stringer.
The missive was in response to one sent by Stringer on behalf of the Woodhaven Residents’ Block Association, urging the agency to review its “overnight ticketing policy concerning trash that is dumped by third-parties and leads to violations being issued to property owners.”
According to the WRBA, in a statement issued in October, it is a common nighttime occurrence for people to dump trash outside Jamaica Avenue storefronts. Then, DSNY agents write summonses in the middle of the night, fining the victimized property owners, including at times the WRBA, for failing to dispose of garbage that they had actually never seen. These owners, the civic said, are getting fined for dumping “they could not possibly have prevented or corrected.” The civic also detailed how the agents many times take the trash with them when they write the ticket, without providing any photographs to the fined party.
In his letter, Stringer asked Garcia, “How does DSNY determine if trash left overnight at a property is left by a property-owner or by an illegal dumper? Does DSNY overnight ticketing policy have a process for providing property owners with photographic or visual evidence of a violation with which to determine culpability or dispute a [Notice of Violation]?”
In her response, Garcia wrote that DSNY agents are “authorized to issue violations to residents or commercial establishments at any time in which a condition that violates” codes or city rules is observed.
Additionally, Garcia said, “It is only in very rare instances that the Department will provide further documentary evidence to prove their case.”
A WRBA member characterized this latest development as “frustrating.”
By Michael V. Cusenza
