Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Report: Drinking or urinating in, say, Tompkins Square Park, no longer a criminal offense

Last March, the city and DA's office announced a new initiative to change how individuals who commit low-level offenses are processed in Manhattan.

As NY1 reports, a number of offenses will now (as of yesterday) be handled in city administrative court rather than as criminal cases. The NYPD will issue civil summonses for quality-of-life offenses. The new summons policy mandates that offenders then appear at the city Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings — OATH!

Per NY1:

Violations with less serious penalties now include urinating or drinking in public, spitting, littering, making excessive noise in a park or breaking park rules.

But!
You may still have to go to criminal court under some circumstances.

That includes a person getting three civil summonses for quality-of-life offenses, ignoring them, and then getting a fourth summons.

The new guidelines do not apply to those with open warrants, prior felony arrests, or who may be on parole or probation.

The Daily News reports that about 96 percent of patrol officers have been trained on the new guidelines.

NYPD officials estimate that this will reduce the number of criminal summonses issued a year by about 100,000. The idea is that the initiative will enable the NYPD to devote its resources to investigating serious crimes, while further reducing the backlog of cases in Criminal Court, among other reasons.

25 comments:

  1. This new approach should go a long way to make women feel more comfortable urinating in public.

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  2. this is all BS. they will still put you through the system (i.e., an overnight stay at 100 centre st) if you aren't white. that's how it's always worked. this just means the frat boys won't get summonses for open containers and throwing loud parties anymore because, hey, that's bad for business and business is booming.

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  3. THIS IS BRILLIANT. Soon we will have Motorcycles and Cars on the sidewalk..Mark my words.

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  4. Woo hoo! The NYU-Crustie reunion keg party in the park begins immediately. Anyway. It's about time we started giving humans the same rights we affford to dogs: if dogs can piss anywhere they please then so should humans. And now they will.

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  5. That's one way to reduce crime! the late Senator Moynihan coined the terms "defining deviancy down" and this seems like a particularly egregious example. Thanks Mayor Bill.

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  6. Ridiculous. How is some guy whipping his schlong out in public and peeing anywhere he wants not offensive? How does someone have the right to make excessive noise and irritate those in the vicinity who may want it a little quieter? Guessing not many people go to Carl Schurz Park and act like this, else DirtBag would not be so quick to sign off on making such nonsense acceptable.

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  7. We would hate to ruffle someone's feathers by telling them pissing on the ground is not allowed! #DeBlasio

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  8. Ah, scumbag DiBlasio at "work" again. What does he do? Seriously? Aside from getting the taxpayers to fund his jetsetting and grandstanding, what does he do all day? Useless parasite.

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  9. It's one thing to not arrest people for pissing, being loud and drunk in public but to tell everyone there will be little to no consequences to doing so is a bad idea.

    So the city's non-planners just can't keep up with all the drunks that certain neighborhoods have since it started handing out liquor licenses like candy on Halloween to anyone requesting one. Of course residents of the Lower East Side has suffered the most with sleepless weekends nights and a disgusting aftermath during the days.

    I wonder if the police in Times Sq will be as lenient with people pissing in public as they are in the EV?

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  10. Thought I'd also share this fascinating look back at how quality of life arrests were handled in the bad old days, e.g., summer of 1994:

    https://books.google.com/books?id=VOMCAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PP1&pg=PA16#v=onepage&q&f=false

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  11. I suspect if you piss on the lawn at City Hall you WILL be arrested.

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  12. Totally absurd! You give someone an INCH and they will absolutely take a MILE! Back to the future.

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  13. I took a right turn and landed in the New York Post comment section.

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  14. Hate to be all lawyery but "drinking" needs to be defined. We all assume it means to drink and alcoholic beverage, but some hard nose cops may say its drinking all beverages.

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  15. At 9:19 PM, Anonymous quoth:

    Hate to be all lawyery but "drinking" needs to be defined. We all assume it means to drink and alcoholic beverage, but some hard nose cops may say its drinking all beverages.

    Good point; I almost got cuffed once for carrying a 4-pack of Reed's Ginger Brew.

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  16. We should all go to the Pee Phone and Celebrate...

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  17. So basically you become a criminal after you're summoned for pissing in the park four times, got it.

    Someone should hold a demonstration where everyone pees, spits, litters, blasts music, makes loud noise outside of music, and breaks park rules, with everyone ready to pay tickets cuz hey - that's what this new policy is all about - negative revenue.

    It would show how ridiculous Mayor DeBlaseo is.

    Trump is even more annoying because it means we'll be stuck with this nothingburger of a man for another four years.

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  18. i.e. the only reason DeBlaseo will be reelected besides NYC mayor elections having pathetically low turnouts is because Trump is POTUS (not mine but POTUS all the same.)

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  19. read the <a href="http://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=2553507&GUID=BF52096B-1917-4914-977F-91E604025A50>legislation</a> people!

    of course NY1 (Charter Communications/Time Warner Cable) decided to come to Tompkins to cover this city-wide law. I fear this will adversely impact property values in the 'hood.

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  20. May the NYPD step into a big puddle of you know what.

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  21. Never thought I see a comment on EV Grieve about how something might negatively impacts property values. Geez, there are a great deal more terrible things happening in the hood to people that we should be concerned about then the impact on not sending people to jail for urinating in public. Do people really believe this will lead to an increase in this activity. The only people who ever got arrested for this were homeless people, trust me white boys and girls pee all over this neighborhood both literally and figuratively and never get arrested.

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  22. Maybe a Pee in at TSP on a hot summer day will start the summer solstice

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  23. Let's hold a Rude Out where we all do everything you could get ticketed for.

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  24. Two hours of cleaning up a park you urinate in, no fine (light punishment) or jail (harsh punishment.)

    Two more hours for every offense thereafter so four hours for the second offense, six for the third and so on, plus a $25 fine for the second offense and $25 more for every offense thereafter.



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  25. Just imagine all the cool Instagram photos of everyone pissing Into the sunset during Manhattanhenge...

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