A Pine Mess!

Children climbing trees? This has got to stop! That’s pretty much the message Anthony Avellino says he got last month when two park rangers handed him a $1,000 ticket after his daughters, Rebecca, left, and Leah, front right, and their 11-year-old friend Darrayn were caught climbing a Japanese white pine in New York’s Central Park. The ticket cites Avellino for “destruction, defacement or abuse of a tree.” Rangers say several branches of the rare, expensive tree were broken. Avellino, shown holding daughter Julie, says he will fight the ticket. The children were sitting still in the tree, telling stories, he says, when they were startled by the ranger ordering them to get down; one child broke a branch, Avellino says, while complying with the order.