By Tom Tracy
While it’s unclear if the city’s renewed enforcement of the MTA’s “No” list has had an effect, it appears that the crackdown has already taken its first victim – a Park Slope woman who received a ticket last week for placing her bag on a seat in an uncrowded subway car. Samantha Hoover, 33, told the New York Post last week that she was pulled off of a Brooklyn-bound F train at the Jay Street station and given a ticket for putting a Whole Foods bag on the seat next to her. Hoover explained that the train car was nearly empty and was surprised when a cop came up to her and demanded that she get off the train with him. Without the courtesy of a simple warning, she said, the officer told her she had violated one of the MTA’s rules of conduct. “A police officer walks up to me and wants to know if I’ve ever been arrested,” Hoover said. “He asked for my identification and said, ‘You can’t put your bag there’ [next to my seat.]” “The train was empty,” she said. The officer took her off the train, ran her name to see if she had any warrants for her arrest and then gave her a $50 ticket. Over the last few months, straphangers have noticed a new “No” list on subway cars, which is usually placed at the ends of each car. While the old list had “no spitting, smoking or radio playing,” the new list includes occupying more than one seat. The exact rule of conduct is as follows: a person should not “occupy more than one seat on a station, platform or conveyance when to do so would interfere or tend to interfere with the operation of the Authority’s transit system or the comfort of other passengers; place his or her foot on a seat on a station, platform or conveyance.” The rule, however, is traditionally enforced with a warning, and then a summons if the passenger does not adhere to the warning. The rule is also usually enforced for those found sleeping sprawled across two or three seats. Hoover said that she expects to fight the ticket. Citing the MTA’s code of conduct, officials said that the ticket appears legitimate on its face.
