The city raked in a record high $993 million in fines last year — driven by a spike in quality of life penalties, new data shows.
Total fines are up 3.7% since the year before and have jumped 16% since 2012, according to the stats from City Controller Scott Stringer.
Officials handed out nearly 700,000 quality of life fines in the 2016 fiscal year — for littering, dirty sidewalks, noise, illegal vending and a host of other rule breaking. The number of violations has spiked by 51% since 2013.
They brought in $184 million in such fines, up from $150 million the year before and a $41 million jump since 2012.
“Fines are an important tool to discourage behavior that can be harmful to others,” Stringer said, citing the Vision Zero push to reduce traffic deaths.
“At the same time, with the cost of living rising and rents soaring, New Yorkers feel squeezed, and unnecessary fines or overly-aggressive enforcement don’t help,” he said. “We have to keep working to strike the right balance between effective enforcement and not overburdening our residents.”
Parking tickets accounted for 55% of all fines, bringing in $545 million for city coffers, a $32 million spike since 2012.
But fines against restaurants and other small businesses have dropped by $27 million, in line with a pledge by Mayor de Blasio to ease the burden on businesses that were up in arms about getting hit with what they saw as penny ante fines.
Overall, though, fines have increased 22% under the de Blasio administration, from $811 million in 2013 to the nearly a billion brought in last year.
Parking fines jumped $79 million during the mayor’s time in office, and fines from red light, bus lane, and speed cameras went up $21 million.
Camera fines added up to $96 million last year, the biggest category after parking and quality of life tickets. Building permit penalties generated another $60 million.
Quality of life fines as measured in the report cover violations issued by the Department of Sanitation and Transportation, which saw the biggest spikes, along with other agencies.
They do not include fines collected from summonses for quality of life crimes handed out by the NYPD. The City Council passed legislation to shift enforcement against offenses like public urination and drinking to civil instead of criminal summonses, but the changes haven’t yet taken full effect.
“We’re deterring people from running red lights and leaving sidewalks strewn with garbage, bringing down fines on small businesses, and giving out civil summonses for offenses that used to be treated as crimes. A cleaner, safer, and fairer city is something we can all be proud of,” said de Blasio spokesman Austin Finan.
