New York drivers who gamble on alternate-side parking just got a loud, neon-green reminder that the house is changing the rules. After a 14-year break, the city has resurrected its oversize "sticker of shame" for cars that block street sweepers, now paired with a $65 ticket and a message casting blame, per the New York Times. "This vehicle violated NYC street cleaning rules," the sticker reads. "As a result, this street could not be properly cleaned."
The first batch went out on Tuesday on the Upper West Side, where Councilwoman Gale Brewer personally plastered a Jeep and barked "Move your car!," as the driver of a nearby vehicle sped off to avoid the same fate. The stickers can be up to 8 1/2 inches by 11 inches, per WABC. They once drew so many complaints they were outlawed in 2012; the stickers now come with removal instructions ("warm water and a scraper") and a promise from Gregory Anderson, the head of the city's Department of Sanitation, that the goal is cleaner streets, not punishment, per the Times.
Many locals say something had to give on blocks where compliance is low and horn-honking on sweep days is constant. "The sweeper ... literally ends up going down the middle of the street and cleans nothing," Brewer says, per Spectrum News. "We've tried everything." Others, however, still see the neon labels as vandalism, not enforcement. The city is also testing a "carrot" in Brooklyn's Prospect Heights: cutting sweeping from twice a week to once, in hopes that when it happens, people will actually move.
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