Bath Beach parking pains “proliferate”

Community Board 11 Chair Bill Guarinello wants to know if there are commercial vehicles parking illegally on your block.

“There is a major proliferation of commercial vehicles parking on residential streets,” Guarinello said at Community Board 11’s monthly meeting on September 12.

According to the New York City Department of Transportation’s Parking, Standing and Stopping Rules for Commercial Vehicles, commercial vehicles are prohibited from parking on residential streets for over three hours at a time or between the hours of 9 p.m. and 5 a.m.

Guarinello told residents to make some observations and bring any grievances or problem areas to the October meeting. “Take a month, look around and if it’s as bad as I think…we need to take it up to a higher level,” Guarinello said, noting that tickets for offenses such as this cost only $65, which may not be enough to deter the errant drivers.

Sonia Valentin, a board member, said that she often sees car trailers parking around her Benson Avenue home. She said that when she confronts drivers about their illegal parking, they simply bounce from block to block for shorter periods of time.

“They are huge; they take up three or four spots,” Valentin contended.

Mario Mendes lives on Bay 17th Street and said that he does have problems with parking, but it’s not due to commercial vehicles. “People who work in the auto shops in 18th Avenue park here,” he explained. “Workers also bring customer’s cars here when they are finished [working on them].”

He said that commuters who take the D train also park on his block. “They want to avoid the meters,” Mendes said.

Special Operations Lieutenant Jim Guercio of the 62nd Precinct said that he has received a few complaints. “We are addressing it with traffic enforcement,” he told this paper at the Precinct’s Community Council meeting held on September 18.

Guarinello said that if enough residents bring grievances to the next meeting, scheduled to take place on October 11, “We can go to the mayor’s office or the Department of Transportation,” he said. “If they towed the scofflaws – even one – we would be good.”

A spokesperson for the DOT told this paper to refer all “enforcement-related” questions to the NYPD.

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