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Why Was A Sanitation Cop Making Busts In A "Papa John's" Car?
By
John Del Signore
Published Jun 14, 2011
Modified Jun 14, 2011
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By
John Del Signore
Published Jun 14, 2011
Modified Jun 14, 2011
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Last month we rushed to judgment when a group of NYPD officers who parked in a bike lane were photographed inside a Papa John's establishment on what appeared to be non-urgent police business; i.e. eating shitty pizza. We judged them not only for blocking a bike lane, but also for dining on Papa John's in the pizza capital of the world. Well, there is egg on our faces, because it now appears law enforcement officials have been using Papa John's as a cover to conduct sting operations! Well, one Sanitation Department enforcement officer has been allegedly doing this.
The Post reports that an eyewitness spotted the "dough-brained" enforcement officer pulling over a perp in his all-black, tinted-window Toyota Prius, adorned with a Papa John's magnetic billboard on the roof and magnetic signage on the car's sides—with a bogus number for Papa John's. But instead of being rewarded by superiors for his innovation—for who would suspect America's trashiest pizza company to enforce sanitation rules—the unidentified officer is being investigated.
"The signage was unauthorized," Sanitation spokesman Keith Mellis tells the tabloid. "It wasn't approved by supervisors or the department." That's right, he just went ahead and did it, and he kept on winning it his own way, like some Sanitation Colonel Kurtz, getting results totally beyond the pale of any acceptable Sanitation Department conduct. In fact, when that witness spotted him he was actually in the middle of issuing a summons to a van caught stealing recyclables placed at the curb for garbage collection! So who cares if his methods are unsound?
Well, city bureaucracy can't tolerate a maverick, because who knows how many teenage Papa John's delivery guys he has enlisted in his rogue army? But did they ever consider the poor guy might just be moonlighting at Papa John's to make ends meet? This time, let's not rush to judgment... Oh hell, we can't resist—this officer has very obviously gone insane and must be terminated. Terminated with extreme prejudice.
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papa john's
pizza
sanitation
sanitation department
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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