Bayside Car Dealer Clogs Street Parking With Vehicles, Locals Say

BAYSIDE, NY -- Danny Simone remembers a time when there was always street parking available in front of his Bayside home. Now he feels lucky to find a spot less than two blocks away.

Simone claims Bayside Imports, a local used car dealership across from his home, has been filling street parking in his neighborhood with cars spilling over from its inventory at 20201 Northern Blvd. Despite it being illegal in New York City to park in the same spot for more than seven days in a row, dealership cars with expired license plates – or with none at all – sit for months without being towed, he said.

"There’s 13 cars out there with no licenses today," Simone said. "If I leave a car out on the street, they'd tow it the next day, and I’m a citizen. You’d think with a business it would be even quicker."

He's not the only one voicing concerns. A similar complaint about Bayside Imports posted to a Bayside, Queens Facebook group garnered more than 100 comments, with several members joining in to voice their own parking grievances with the dealership. Some claimed they called 311 to report dealership cars parked illegally in surrounding neighborhood streets, but to no avail.

Police said the car dealership has a history of parking violations. The NYPD Precinct 111 has done several "aggressive tows" of dealership cars parked along surrounding streets, the most recent in August, and plans to do another within the month, Community Affairs Officer John Erdman said.

Erdman said officers from the precinct have talked to the dealership regularly about its cars impeding onto sidewalks or taking up neighboring street parking spots for months, both of which are illegal, according to the City of New York.

"We've talked with them about what they would deem an appropriate line for the sidewalk and we're trying to come up with some type of compromise," he said.

Still, cars with expired or no license plates continue to clutter surrounding streets. Some are marked as abandoned, while others have tickets or violation notices from the 111th Precinct tucked into their windshields. Simone pointed out a white van marked with the word "Tow" that he said has been parked on various roads near the dealership for well over a year.

"Last night there were even more cars out there," he said, gesturing toward the dealership on Tuesday. "They know about it, and it's like they’re saying they don’t care."

A Bayside Imports sales representative told Patch the dealership came under new ownership two months ago and on Tuesday started moving its cars from the streets to storage units in unspecified locations.

"We're trying our best to take care of the cars and handle it as quickly as possible," said the representative, who didn't give his name.

"We're not trying to be the bad people."

Erdman said while the dealership did appear to be taking advantage of neighborhood parking, the precinct doesn't have the resources to tow all the cars at once.

"It’s not like we can just show up there one day with 15 tow trucks and tow every car in their shop," he said. "That would require resources from all over New York City here to do that. ... People are very concerned about this, but there’s other precincts where it’s 10 times worse than what we have here."

But he maintained the precinct was monitoring the dealership and another big tow would happen soon if they don't follow through on promises to clear the cars.

"It's going to happen sometime this month," Erdman said. "Stay tuned."

But such promises feel somewhat empty to Simone, who said parking in his neighborhood has only gotten scarcer despite years of reporting dealership vehicles to the police and 311. He now pays his landlord an extra $100 per month to park his work car in the driveway of his rental house and typically searches at least two blocks down the road before finding a space to park his other car.

"I didn’t have to do that four years ago," Simone said. "No matter what time we came home, there was always an open spot."

Lead image via Patch Reporter Danielle Woodward.