Auto Dealers on Northern Blvd. Parking Cars on Sidewalks, CB 11 Members Say

Community Board 11 members are complaining that auto dealers along Northern Boulevard have been parking their merchandise along sidewalks in Bayside.

Board member Henry Euler said he has noticed vehicles parked along the sidewalk near the Clearview Expressway service road, forcing pedestrians to step into the road.

“People have to walk out into the street on the Clearview,” he said during CB 11’s monthly board meeting last night. “It’s dangerous and it’s got to stop.”

Bill Conway, of the 111th Precinct’s community affairs department, said police officers cannot ticket the auto dealers unless the vehicles on the sidewalks have license plates.

“We cannot write summonses to vehicles without license plates,” he said. “We can operate an aggressive towing operation, but we can’t do it on the fly.”

Conway said the precinct is keeping its eye on the auto dealers and that a future towing operation is a possibility.

A representative from GrowNYC, which operates the massive green market at Union Square, had signed up to speak during the public session of the board’s meeting about a proposal to create a market near the Long Island Rail Road station in Douglaston.

But Susan Seinfeld, the board’s district manager, said the matter would be discussed at CB 11’s May meeting.

The board introduced its six newest members, including Douglaston’s Susan Cerezo as well as Sonya Fierro Gladwin, Robert Liatto, Chris Petallides, Teddy Teng and Ocelia Claro, who had previously served on CB 11.

The new members will undergo orientation on May 12 at Queens Borough Hall in Kew Gardens.

Queens District Attorney Richard Brown dropped by the meeting and told the crowd that his office would likely hire seven or eight new assistant district attorneys this year. But he said he has received a total of 1,300 applications.

Brown said violent crime has dropped significantly since he first became the borough’s DA in 1980.

“When I started as DA, we had 161 homicides that year,” he said. “Now, we’re down in the 70s.”

Jerry Iannece, CB 11’s chairman, announced several events on the horizon in the district, including the Bayside Anglers’s shore cleanup on April 10 and The Center for the Women of New York’s April 30 event at Douglas Manor.

For more information, visit CB 11’s website.