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NYPD curbs spitting and idling tickets amid complaints about quality-of-life crackdown
By
Ben Feuerherd
Published Nov 9, 2026 at 4:32 p.m. ET
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By
Ben Feuerherd
Published Nov 9, 2026 at 4:32 p.m. ET
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The NYPD is telling officers to stop giving out tickets for spitting, except in the transit system, and vehicle idling, except in response to specific complaints, according to internal NYPD guidance issued Friday that was reviewed by Gothamist.
The directive also cautioned officers not to issue summonses for jaywalking, which has not been a criminal offense since 2024.
It follows criticism by some New Yorkers over an increase in so-called quality of life enforcement by the NYPD. In October, a video circulated on social media that showed an NYPD officer forcefully arresting someone they had stopped for spitting in Brownsville, Brooklyn. Days later, City Councilmember Chris Banks announced that he would introduce a bill striking spitting from the city’s litter ordinance.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani has faced criticism over his handling of policing issues on a number of fronts. After his election, Mamdani retained NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch who began the quality of life crackdown under Mayor Eric Adams. As a candidate for mayor, Mamdani said he would take a community-based approach to public safety and ask police officers to focus on solving serious crimes.
Residents who spoke to Gothamist for a number of stories about the low-level enforcement had mixed opinions about such summonses, with some supportive of the enforcement, and others critical.
An NYPD spokesperson characterized the guidance issued Friday as a routine reminder to officers about enforcement rules and expectations. The spokesperson said it was not done in response to Gothamist reporting.
Last week, NYPD spokesperson Bradley Weekes said officers are writing quality of life summonses because of an increased number of 311 complaints from residents. “People are asking the NYPD for help, and we are responding to what the community is asking us to do,” Weekes said in a statement.
City Hall declined to comment about the guidance issued Friday.
549 Summonses
In the last fiscal year, which ended at the end of June, NYPD officers wrote 549 civil summonses for spitting violations, according to Marisa Senigo, a spokesperson for the city’s hearing and trials office. NYPD officers wrote 222 civil tickets for engine idling in the same time period, she added.
After the video of the arrest in Brownsville, Councilmember Chris Banks told Gothamist in October that he was unhappy about how the arrest happened.
“We all want clean and safe and orderly neighborhoods, but we want to make sure that it's not at the expense of people's dignity,” Banks told Gothamist at the time. “And it can't be an excuse for the unnecessary or disproportionate confrontations that we're seeing.”
“We’ve seen how interactions between young Black and brown men particularly have become a death sentence for them or has got them involved in the criminal justice system,” Banks added.
Jaywalking has not been a criminal offense since 2024, when the City Council passed a bill that legalized the practice and then-Mayor Eric Adams did not veto the legislation.
The NYPD has not issued summonses for that offense since the law change, but has continued to enforce a similar violation called “pedestrian in the roadway.”
So far this year, NYPD officers have written dozens of criminal tickets for that offense, with most of the violations written by officers in a single precinct on Staten Island, according to a data analysis by the Data Collaborative for Justice at John Jay College.
Tickets tossed
Critics of the department’s quality-of-life enforcement have argued the process is a waste of police resources, and New Yorkers’ time.
In the last fiscal year, NYPD officers wrote more than 98,000 civil tickets for infractions like open containers and public urination. But nearly half of those summons were dismissed by hearing officers because they were defectively written or did not properly identify who received it.
“These summonses still force New Yorkers to spend time navigating the legal system and appearing at hearings, often over cases that should never have proceeded,” Amanda Jack, the policy director of criminal law reform at the Legal Aid Society told Gothamist at the time. “A dismissal rate this staggering only underscores how little justification there is for subjecting so many New Yorkers to this process at all.”
Weekes, the NYPD spokesperson, said at the time that the civil tickets were dismissed “based on technicalities” and that officers were identifying unlawful behavior and taking the correct action.
Criminal tickets issued by officers are dismissed at a similar rate, according to another analysis by the Data Collaborative for Justice.
In 2024, judges who presided over criminal summons cases threw out more than 65% of the cases because the tickets were not written properly or they did not correctly state what law had been broken.
Just 9% of criminal summonses issued that year ended in a conviction, the research concluded. The authors determined the process itself was the punishment for the New Yorkers given the tickets because they were forced to spend time fighting it in court and navigating the legal system.
If the recipient of a criminal summons does not pay the fine or fight to dismiss the ticket, a warrant for their arrest will be issued. In response to the quality-of-life enforcement, the Brooklyn district attorney’s office held an event last month to clear residents’ outstanding warrants that were triggered by unpaid criminal summonses.
In an interview with Gothamist at the time, District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said people with outstanding warrants for small infractions may be less likely to help law enforcement.
Tagged
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new york city
nypd
public safety
Ben Feuerherd
Ben Feuerherd covers public safety and policing for WNYC and Gothamist. He previously covered federal courts for The New York Post and The Messenger. His work has also appeared in POLITICO, the Daily Beast and NBC New York. Got a tip? Email [email protected].
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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