I definitely took some liberty with that headline (pun intended), but it’s pretty close. In NYC there is this idiotic parking rule, whereby you can only park on certain sides of the street on certain days to permit street cleaning. If you park on the wrong side of the street (or more likely, you forget to move your car, or don’t know which side of the street is open), the Sanitation Department slaps one of those annoying stickers on your window that is impossible to remove. Now, the City Council wants to reverse that policy, arguing that it violates due process!
By a 47-to-0 vote, the Council moved to end the practice, arguing, in part, that the stickers violated New Yorkers’ due process: visibly being declared guilty before being given a chance to prove one’s innocence. But the real motivation stems from firsthand frustration.
Shockingly, Mayor Bloomberg opposes the change.
Now, 25 years after the Sanitation Department introduced the stickers, the City Councilpassed a bill on Wednesday to outlaw them, over the objections of the Bloomberg administration.