New York City’s vibrant streets are once again playing host to the notorious ‘stickers of shame,’ with Mayor Zohran Mamdani defending their return to the urban landscape. These glaring lime green notices are being applied to cars violating parking rules, replacing traditional tickets and towing.
Reintroduced by City Council member Gale Brewer after a 12-year hiatus, the 8.5 x 11-inch stickers require more than just elbow grease—and a scraper—to remove them from offenders’ vehicles.
Although Mamdani did not personally endorse the legislation by signing or vetoing it, he proceeded with its implementation and justified its necessity during a press briefing held on Tuesday.
“Ensuring the Sanitation Department can effectively conduct street cleaning is of utmost importance,” he articulated.
“In my conversations with the dedicated team at DSNY, we always discuss methods to streamline their hard work. If this initiative contributes towards that, it has my complete backing,” he affirmed.
The first stickers were placed on cars that blocked street cleaning vehicles Tuesday morning at W. 90th Street between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West.
David Greenfield, a former New York City councilmember, fought the stickers back in his time on the council and was dismayed to see them return.
‘For 14 blissful years, these stickers were illegal in NYC because I banned them when I served in @NYCCouncil. Why? Many of drivers getting stickered were innocent and the glue wrecked their cars,’ he said.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani defended the return of the city’s massive ‘stickers of shame’ being placed on vehicles breaking the law in lieu of tickets or towing
The 8.5 x 11-inch lime green stickers – which require a scraper to take off an offending car – had been gone for 12 years before they were revived by City Council member Gale Brewer
He continued: ‘A ticket is a penalty. Gluing trash to someone’s windshield is vandalism.’
While many people blamed the policy and the punishments, some even turned on Mayor Mamdani after NY Times reporter Emma Fitzsimmons posted about the stickers.
‘What would Emma have said if the new “commie” mayor just had her car towed?’ asked one X user.
‘Mamdani gentle parenting car owners in nyc,’ added another.
‘The liberals hate the police but will waste no time co-opting any symbol of the police for their own control tactics,’ said one more.
Social media users were also not amused after seeing the size and color of the garish, difficult-to-remove adhesives.
One asked: ‘How is this not vandalism?’
‘Why don’t they just tow the car?’ wondered another.
The first stickers were placed on cars that blocked street cleaning vehicles Tuesday morning at W. 90th Street between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West
The old stickers were banished in 2012
Join the discussion
Do you think plastering huge, hard-to-remove stickers on cars is justified in the fight for clean streets?
‘This is idiotic, is the ticket not enough,’ pondered a critic.
The Department of Sanitation claimed over half a million vehicles violate alternate-side parking rules every week.
Brewer told the New York Post that ‘There’s just not enough cops’ to properly enforce parking laws otherwise.
Sanitation Commissioner Gregory Anderson claimed that the $65 tickets were nowhere near the deterrent they should be.
‘For many New Yorkers, a $65 summons is simply the cost of free street parking, and our streets are dirtier because of it,’ Anderson said.
He added that he would prefer the ability to use automated cameras to enforce it but that the state government would have to give them the authority to do so.
‘We hope that these stickers motivate people to move their cars. Our goal is clean streets that all New Yorkers deserve, not to use stickers nor to write tickets.’
For Brewer, its a matter of making it easier to clean the streets.
‘Street cleaning only works when cars move. Warning stickers were one of the City’s most effective tools for improving compliance before they were banned in 2012,’ she said.