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Greenport Village releases stats on parking ticket enforcement

parking enforcemnt

Greenport Village’s new parking and traffic code enforcement officer issued 37 tickets over Father’s Day weekend, according to Mayor George Hubbard Jr.

Those statistics were discussed during last Thursday’s Village Board meeting. The amount of parking tickets issued this past weekend weren’t immediately available.

The Village Board recently hired Greg Morris to work part-time on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays to issue parking tickets. He’s paid $20 an hour.

Mr. Morris started writing tickets between June 17-19.  Here’s a breakdown:

Parking where prohibited: 12

Parking outside the lines:  7

Parking in handicapped:  5

Parking longer than permitted: 5

Stopping or standing where prohibited : 4

Parking out of markings: 2

Having an uninspected vehicle: 1

Parking facing the wrong direction:  1

Mr. Hubbard noted only five tickets were issued for parking longer than permitted, adding the focus of the new initiative is to deter drivers from parking in fire zones and handicapped spaces.

“In general, 80 percent of tickets were done for quality of life issues, which is what we wanted to start with,” Mr. Hubbard said. “We are not beating everybody down over being somewhere for two hours and ten minutes to get a sandwich or whatever.

“People say we’re just giving everyone a hard time, but we’re not trying to do that — we just try to make it safer for people to get around the village.”

[Editorial: Be careful where you park your car in Greenport]

The mayor added he has received some negative feedback in response to the increased parking enforcement.

“We’ve had comments saying we’re killing business and driving people away, but it’s really just people parking illegally,” he said.

Sarah Phillips, president of the Greenport Business Improvement District, said in an interview that she’s heard feedback from about a dozen people.

“It was a little surprising for local business owners to hear that we are enforcing parking, as we have not been enforcing parking for quite some time,” she said. “There’s a little bit of confusion for not only business owners, but also patrons because there’s not a lot of signage providing clear direction for either Greenport residents, business owners or visitors.”

Village Clerk Sylvia Pirillo said Mr. Morris has completed a survey of missing signs and he’ll also be introducing himself to downtown businesses owners.

Prior to the Village Board hiring Mr. Morris, who is a former New York City auxiliary police officer, the only parking enforcement in the village was conducted by the Southold Town Police Department.

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Photo: Greenport Village Mayor George Hubbard Jr., right, with Greg Morris, the new parking and traffic code enforcement officer. (Credit: Tim Gannon)