For the past several months, drivers whose rushed or sloppy parking impeded the work of New York’s street cleaners met a prompt and sticky fate. Their cars were slapped with neon-yellow shame stickers, almost impossible to remove. According to owners, some cars were left “permanently defaced.” In February, the City Council unanimously passed a resolution banning the stickers, but noted clean-freak Mayor Bloomberg vetoed the measure.
But today, the City Council officially and unanimously overrode the mayor’s veto. The enforced ban will finally rid the streets of bright-yellow shame and the gummy, tacky residue it leaves behind. As the councilman-crusader at the head of the banning effort said, “Hands down, this is the most popular piece of legislation I have introduced.”
While our own Matthew Shaer proposed the council and the Sanitation Department find a stickiness middle-ground — somewhere in between a Post-it note and super glue — in the end, the politics proved too divisive. Christine C. Quinn, the council speaker, had gotten slapped with a sticker herself, and tried for days to remove it.
But today, she was jubilant. “Our law will put an end to these unnecessary scarlet letters, once and for all.”
