New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is standing behind the return of the city’s oversized “stickers of shame,” a revived enforcement tool now being slapped on vehicles that violate parking rules instead of immediately issuing tickets or ordering tows.
The bright lime green stickers, measuring 8.5 by 11 inches and notoriously difficult to remove without a scraper, had been absent from city streets for 12 years before City Council member Gale Brewer brought them back.
Mamdani did not sign or veto the measure, but his administration has moved forward with implementing it, and he defended the policy while speaking with reporters on Tuesday.
“It is critically important that the Sanitation Department be able to conduct street cleaning,” he said.
“Whenever I meet the hardworking members of DSNY, the question is always how we can make their jobs easier. If this measure accomplishes that, I fully support it,” Mamdani added.
The first of the revived stickers appeared Tuesday morning on cars blocking street-cleaning vehicles along West 90th Street, between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West.
David Greenfield, a former New York City councilmember who opposed the stickers during his time in office, said he was disappointed to see the practice return.
“For 14 blissful years, these stickers were illegal in NYC because I banned them when I served in @NYCCouncil. Why? Many of drivers getting stickered were innocent and the glue wrecked their cars,” he said.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani defended the return of the city’s massive ‘stickers of shame’ being placed on vehicles breaking the law in lieu of tickets or towing
The 8.5 x 11-inch lime green stickers – which require a scraper to take off an offending car – had been gone for 12 years before they were revived by City Council member Gale Brewer
He continued: ‘A ticket is a penalty. Gluing trash to someone’s windshield is vandalism.’
While many people blamed the policy and the punishments, some even turned on Mayor Mamdani after NY Times reporter Emma Fitzsimmons posted about the stickers.
‘What would Emma have said if the new “commie” mayor just had her car towed?’ asked one X user.
‘Mamdani gentle parenting car owners in nyc,’ added another.
‘The liberals hate the police but will waste no time co-opting any symbol of the police for their own control tactics,’ said one more.
Social media users were also not amused after seeing the size and color of the garish, difficult-to-remove adhesives.
One asked: ‘How is this not vandalism?’
‘Why don’t they just tow the car?’ wondered another.
The first stickers were placed on cars that blocked street cleaning vehicles Tuesday morning at W. 90th Street between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West
The old stickers were banished in 2012
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Do you think plastering huge, hard-to-remove stickers on cars is justified in the fight for clean streets?
‘This is idiotic, is the ticket not enough,’ pondered a critic.
The Department of Sanitation claimed over half a million vehicles violate alternate-side parking rules every week.
Brewer told the New York Post that ‘There’s just not enough cops’ to properly enforce parking laws otherwise.
Sanitation Commissioner Gregory Anderson claimed that the $65 tickets were nowhere near the deterrent they should be.
‘For many New Yorkers, a $65 summons is simply the cost of free street parking, and our streets are dirtier because of it,’ Anderson said.
He added that he would prefer the ability to use automated cameras to enforce it but that the state government would have to give them the authority to do so.
‘We hope that these stickers motivate people to move their cars. Our goal is clean streets that all New Yorkers deserve, not to use stickers nor to write tickets.’
For Brewer, its a matter of making it easier to clean the streets.
‘Street cleaning only works when cars move. Warning stickers were one of the City’s most effective tools for improving compliance before they were banned in 2012,’ she said.
