SOAKING GRANDMA

Now Mayor Bloomberg is soaking Mother Russia, so to speak, while New York City tax revenues have gone with the wind.

NYC is no better than other cities and government entities that exploit measures to raise funds to compensate for lost tax money. Has it reached the point where they are wringing what change they can from grandma?

The Kings Courier, part of a Brooklyn chain of weekly newspapers, reported that some women described as elderly Russian émigrés were fined $250 each for swimming in shallow water after hours at Brighton Beach. The community is a hub for Russian Jews and one-time home for an earlier generation of Jews; Bloomberg is Jewish.

As Parks Department spokesperson Philip Abramson explains it, New York state law bars swimming without lifeguards on duty and the city is concerned because of recent drowning.

NYC should send a message to offenders, but the city’s take is excessive since working-class residents are often vulnerable to this kind of ticketing. Police departments are notorious for setting parking and traffic ticket quotas. I was victimized on two occasions by what appeared to be this quota mentality. A friend pointed out how one city jacks up penalties for vehicular violations.

At Brighton Beach, Parks officers fined the women for bathing in shallow waters at 6:45 p.m., while it was still light out. If the city should be ticketing the bathers at all, why is the fine so high? A $25 fine would be reasonable, but $250 is probably a colossal chunk of their paycheck.

On a Web site called Gothamist, Irina Kovaneva griped that she can only swim after work; the lifeguards work from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. She asks how the city can operate the park police unit instead of paying lifeguards to remain on duty until 7 or 8 p.m.

Kovaneva recalls life in Mother Russia: “We came to the U.S. to escape the Communist regime, the regime when every step is watched and controlled by the government. What I am facing with this incident is a liberal fascism, when government interferes in your personal life and tells you what you should do, how and when.”

The Courier also reported that Sanitation police previously distributed tickets to small shop owners in Benson Hurst for failing to post signs in their shops designating recyclables. They went through the garbage in a pizzeria and ticketed the owner after finding a plastic bottle here.

Bloomberg denied that the ticketing system is intended to balance the books when he met with editors and reporters for the newspaper. He claimed that a quota system is needed to ensure that enforcement agents meet their responsibilities. Huh?

My friend recalled how he was initially fined $20 for a vehicular violation. He was late to respond, and by the time he did the fine rose to $70.

More than a year ago, I was ticketed for a $70 even though I already paid for a ticket on the River Line light rail operated by New Jersey Transit. I had forgotten to punch the ticket to mark the time I purchased it, but the officer did not care. He was probably under strict orders to ticket anything that moved. I fought this in court, without any attorney, and the judge dismissed the charges.

In central Pennsylvania several years ago, a police officer ticketed me after I drove around his car while it was stopped in the right lane. He was talking to someone and in the process blocked traffic. I was just trying to stay out of his way. He would not give me a chance to explain.

These quota systems are insane. It is a symptom of desperation in cities and other government entities that are deprived of needed tax revenues. The problem is deeper because suburbs benefit from middle-class flight and the cities send more money to Washington and their respective state capitals than they get back.

Those ladies in Brighton Beach did not leave Russia for a city that increasingly resembles a third-world country.