A Brooklyn homeowner has beaten a $100 littering fine by convincing an appeals panel that there are more than 60 minutes in what the city considers an hour, The Post has learned.
In a little-noticed decision, the Environmental Control Board rescinded a summons issued to David Rubin on July 19, 2005, at 9 a.m. for not removing a Styrofoam plate and cup, a candy wrapper and a water bottle at the curb in front of his home.
A law sponsored in 2004 by City Councilman Simcha Felder (D-Brooklyn) allows the Sanitation Department to hand out residential littering summonses during only two one-hour periods: 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. and noon to 1 p.m.
Rubin argued that 9 a.m. is outside that boundary.
He didn't get very far in a hearing before an administrative law judge last year, but found some sympathetic ears this year before some math-savvy appeals officers.
"[The city's] position that residential routing hours commence at and include 8 a.m. and 12 p.m. and end and include 9 a.m. and 1 p.m., respectively, would define predetermined periods in excess of one hour each," the Control Board determined.
It ruled that legitimate summonses couldn't be written past 8:59:59 a.m. and 12:59:59 p.m.
"It's not clever, it's just logic," Rubin said at his Borough Park home. "There are 60 minutes in an hour, not 61. Every body knows that."
He said he wasn't looking for atten tion, but was irri tated at getting ticketed for trash he claimed was blown in front of his corner house, and by the barely legible, handwritten decision that initially found him guilty.
"That got me so irked, I had to do something," he recalled.
The appeals decision didn't sit too well with the Sanitation Department.
"If [the statute] says 9 a.m., that is certainly within the one-hour period we are authorized to write," spokesman Vito Turso insisted.
On a lighter note, Turso added, "We're going to make sure everyone synchronizes their watches."
Councilman Felder said he was "delighted" with the outcome.
"You don't have to give someone a ticket at 9 a.m. or 8:58 a.m.," he said.
"This is the kind of thing people are furious about. I would say the same thing about parking meters. They [enforcement agents] shouldn't be standing there like vultures."
But this David vs. Goliath story has a bitter twist. Rubin said he was recently issued another summons for a similar infraction within the legal time frame.
"Unfortunately, I couldn't make the same argument with this one," he said. "I had to pay the $100. So I didn't really win in the end."
http://www.nypost.com/seven/12262006/news/regionalnews/tick_of_the_litter_regionalnews_patrick_white_____and_david_seifman.htm
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Posted by Chaptzem to Chaptzem Blog! at 12/26/2006 10:28:00 AM
