'Ticket madness' hits New York

Taking a rest in the New York subway could cost you

Sitting down has become an illicit and costly experience for some New Yorkers caught up in a new wave of fines being imposed by city officials.

In recent months penalties have been issued for all kinds of different and apparently innocuous infractions such as sitting on a milk crate in the street to taking a quick rest on steps in a subway station.

Such is the uproar the fines have caused that one local tabloid - the New York Daily News - has launched a campaign called Ticket Madness in which a daily column highlights the most bizarre tickets given out.

In Thursday's edition, the newspaper reports the case of a grandmother in the borough of Queens fined for talking loudly to her next-door neighbour.

Noris Lopez, 62, was in the middle of cooking and says she could not leave the food on the stove.

"So I opened my door, my friend opened her door and we stood in front of our apartments, talking," she told the Daily News.

Police fined her $25 for making "unreasonable noise" outside the apartment where she has lived for 33 years.

How hard would it have been for the policewoman to say, 'Can you please get up?' - there was no reason for her to give me a ticket

Six-months pregnant Crystal Rivera

Last week, a Bronx man was fined $100 for sitting on a milk crate. He was said to have violated a decades-old law covering the "unauthorised use" of the crate.

But perhaps the cruellest tale is of six-months pregnant Crystal Rivera who was fined $50 after sitting on subway stairs to catch her breath.

A policewoman told her she was breaking the law by obstructing access to the platform.

"I told her, 'I'm pregnant, my back hurts and I'm tired'," the 18-year-old student said.

"She was like, 'Well you can't sit there.' How hard would it have been for her to say, 'Can you please get up?' There was no reason for her to give me a ticket."

Raising revenue

The flurry of ticket writing has caused a series of outraged articles in New York papers and complaints on local radio stations.

Police unions say their members are being forced to write ridiculous tickets to meet quotas set by City Hall to help make up New York's multi-billion-dollar deficit.

Even though the numbers of tickets in general are on the decline, their cost is increasing according to Owen Moritz, one of the Daily News reporters who has been covering the story.

"For example you now get a parking ticket for $105 which is up about double to what it was a year ago," he told the BBC's World Today programme.