No Butts About It - Cops Ticket Seat Hogs

People who take up more than one seat on a subway are getting $50 fines even when the cars are virtually empty as police step up enforcement of a little-known rule, the Daily News reported today.

Summonses carrying the $50 fines have been issued at a rate of three an hour this year. By year’s end, they will total more than 31,000, nearly twice as many as last year and a 16-fold increase compared with 1993, when only 1,800 were written, the newspaper said.

The New York Police Department said it could not immediately confirm the account. But Deputy Police Commissioner Marilyn Mode said, “If people are getting tickets on empty trains, or where there are seats open, this is not the intent.”

The newspaper said the fines are being meted out in accordance with a 1940 rule that prohibits occupying more than one seat on a subway.

In a case that occurred last month, Zachary Schlee, a Brooklyn College sophomore, was ticketed for taking up a two-seat bench on a Manhattan-bound D train. There was only one other rider in the car, described by Schlee as “a big burly guy,” and he also got a ticket.

Schlee was cited not only for breaking New York Transit’s rule against occupying more than one seat, he got a second ticket because the cop found his temporary school ID insufficient proof of identity.