Two Women Ticketed For Eating Doughnuts In A Brooklyn Playground

The police may not be ticketing for smoking in the parks, but they are still ticketing parker visitors for crimes like...eating a doughnut in a playground. Yup, this weekend the police gave two young women in Bed-Stuy summonses for eating doughnuts in a playground while unaccompanied by a minor.

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It was a glorious afternoon in early June when I took a friend of mine, who was visiting from New Haven, to Dough, an amazing doughnut shop in Bed-Stuy. Dough is tiny, but there was a park across the street, where I, as well as other doughnut lovers, had eaten doughnuts before. My friend and I entered the park, sat down on a bench and ate our doughnuts. Having finished, we sat there chatting for a few minutes.

As we were getting ready to move on, two officers approached us. Amongst themselves they debated whether the children’s toy next to us meant that we were there with a child. Then they asked us, “Are you here with a child?” We told them no. One of the cops moved on to the couple on a bench nearby, also ostensibly childless, while the other one asked for our IDs. We handed them over and soon we were being guarded by this cop as his partner took our IDs to their police car. My friend and I were confused. We had seen parks with gates that had a sign clearly stating that adults without children were not allowed in. This park had no such sign.

Now I'm wondering how many cities have laws about not being in parks without a child.

Also, that law is crazy, right?

Now I'm wondering how many cities have laws about not being in parks without a child.

Those laws definitely exist in SF.

How did I miss this lovely Snowy Owl slideshow?

Playgrounds or parks? That would seem to make a big difference.

Also, that law is crazy, right?

A little, but it does help the police and parents spot who isn't supposed to be there.

I could see restricting fenced-in playground areas, but not entire parks.

Those laws definitely exist in SF.

Although as far as I know, they're restricted to gated playgrounds and to a couple of small parks that don't have gates but are literally nothing but playground -- playstructure, sandbox, tiny seating area and that's it. Not picturesque, not restful or nature-filled, not someplace any grown-up would have any reason to want to sit down in unless they wanted to be around kids.

If this was just a citation for being in a park, period, that's a little bizarre.

I like to think there's a pretty big divide between "people w/o kids who want to sit in a park" and people who "aren't supposed to be there".

NPR ran a story recently about an 80yo woman who was ticketed for 'obstructing traffic' -- she was going as fast as she could with her walker, but the red light didn't hold long enough.

My non-scientific sampling of bumperstickers here in NE supports the thesis that there are more "Yankees Suck" stickers than one actually reading "Red Sox" or showing their logo. That is how deep the rivalry plays around here.

And yet, my Yankee fanatic (FANATIC) aunt gets nothing worse than friendly ribbing, as far as I've ever heard.