Traffic Cops Really Need Something Better To Do

A priest gets a ticket for double parking while trying to administer last rites:

A Brooklyn priest got slapped with a $115 parking ticket after he rushed into a hospital to administer last rites to a dying woman, the Daily News has learned.

But even after the Rev. Cletus Forson pleaded his case to a traffic judge, the city refused to throw the summons out.

“If the sanctity of the law won’t bend for the needs of a dying person, I feel really sad,” Forson said yesterday.

“It disturbs me as a priest and as a human being,” added the priest, who has served at St. Andrew the Apostle Church on Ridge Blvd. in Bay Ridge for nearly three years.

Forson got hit with the ticket July 26 about 9:30 p.m. for parking in a No Standing Anytime zone in front of Maimonides Medical Center in Borough Park.

The 42-year-old Catholic priest, who is originally from Ghana, said he knew the spot was technically illegal but felt he couldn’t risk wasting time continuing to look for a better spot.

He had just received a call from a panicked parishioner desperate to find a priest to administer last rites to her elderly mother. Forson, who was sick in bed with the flu at the time, said he even checked in with a nurse before leaving and was told there was no time to spare.

“I couldn’t get any parking,” said Forson. “It is my obligation to get there and administer to the needs of the sick.”

Forson placed his official clergy parking permit on the dashboard — which reads “Clergy on Call” — and said he was inside for less than 20 minutes.

“It’s not about the money,” said Forson. “It creates the feeling that if somebody is sick, nobody should go. I don’t think that’s right.”

Forson appealed the ticket, but Administrative Law Judge Michael Ciaravino refused to back down.

“Respondent’s claim that vehicle was parked while he, as a pastor, was attending to a patient at a hospital is not a valid defense to the violation,” wrote Ciaravino in the July 28 decision. “Guilty.”

The only thing better would have been if an ambulance pulled up and got a ticket for being double parked.

Excitement!

Put this bad boy on your iPod:

The 11th Congressional district race has been the most heated of all this year. So we invited all four candidates for the Fightin’ 11th seat — state Sen. Carl Andrews (D-Crown Heights), City Councilwoman Yvette Clarke (D-Flatbush), Chris Owens, and City Councilman David Yassky (D-Brooklyn Heights) — to debate the issues in our DUMBO offices. The entire conversation — moderated by Brooklyn Papers’ Editor Gersh Kuntzman and President Ed Weintrob — is available online.

Some backstory: You Know You’ve Jumped The Shark When . . .

Family Jewels Safe Following Bling Fling

One man’s bling is another man’s “heirloom bling”:

It was bling that had sent them into the sewers.

Andres Rodriguez was serving corn on the cob at an east Williamsburg farmers’ market Saturday when he lost an amethyst gemstone that had been in his family for 40 years.

But after shedding a few tears, Rodriguez got help from city Environmental Protection Department workers, who yesterday retrieved the family heirloom from gallons of gobs of gook.

“He was heartbroken,” said his wife Christian Rodriguez.

“He said, ‘I have very bad news and my heart is broken.’ He was crying. I thought someone died.”

The 40-year-old heirloom, a gift from his father, Andres, dropped into a Cook St. sewer grate. “My heart went right inside with it,” said Rodriguez, 66.

This important ring had to be retrieved, which is when DEP stepped in:

The ring, as well as a diamond ring that didn’t go the way of the sewer, are expected to be willed to one of Andres Rodriguez’s seven sons, all also named Andres.

Two of Andres Rodriguez’s grandsons are also named Andres.

DEP workers yesterday lifted the grate and lifted two loads of grime, wrappers, cups and trash bags with a catch basin.

Once the trash was unloaded, workers raked through the muck and found the ring — in less than 15 minutes.

And you may or may not realize that this happens fairly frequently:

DEP district supervisor Jamie Berkeley, one of three workers who sifted through sludge to find the bling, said New Yorkers call 311 daily in search of lost items.

Although car keys are the item most often lost, Berkeley said he has personally rescued pets, jewelry, wallets and weapons.

Now If They’d Only Do This At The Liquor Store

Bay Ridge residents discover the beauty of the drive-thru:

One Brooklyn neighborhood’s out-of-control parking shortage has spurred local businesses to deliver their wares curbside so harried drivers can get their pastries without a parking ticket.

With parking at a premium and double-parking tickets costing $115, Bay Ridge bookstores, butchers and bakers are offering deliveries to anyone with a car and a cell phone.

“I truly feel bad when my customers get tickets,” said Your Baker co-owner Angelo Saraniero. “It’s not good when it costs them $115 to park and pick up a piece of cake.”

Saraniero, 43, said about 100 drivers call from outside his 86th St. store each week to order tiramisu and sponge cake.

The drive-through service has helped customers avoid tickets, and also has lured new ones to the 26-year-old family business.

“I’m gaining customers who would otherwise pass me up because they’re afraid of the consequences,” said Saraniero.

At A Novel Idea, a bookstore on Third Ave., longtime customers order “The Da Vinci Code” and “Pride and Prejudice” from the comfort of the driver’s seats.

Owners Christine and Ellen Heaney said interest in the delivery service picked up speed two years ago after customers complained about a Bay Ridge ticket blitz.

The number of curbside deliveries hits its peak during the holidays, when shoppers line up around the block to call in their orders.

“Mothers love the service because if the kids are sleeping in the back, then they don’t have to wake them up,” said Christine Heaney, 35.

And In One Fell Swoop Became . . . A Walking Ironic T-Shirt!

From Colonial Williamsburg to . . . Colonial Williamsburg:

It is hereby noted that a cooper — a maker of wooden buckets, tubs, butter churns, and, above all, barrels — came to town a few weeks ago from Williamsburg, Virginia, for purposes of “cross-promotion,” a distinctly modern concept that is nevertheless familiar to Williamsburg’s Colonial citizenry. To honor the upcoming quadrennial celebration of the nearby Jamestown colony, the one-and-thirty-year-old cooper was installed beneath a tent at the South Street Seaport for several days, along with some of his compatriots, to entertain people with knowledge of practices and places obsolete.

. . .

Feeling a pang of homesickness, he doffed his waistcoat and cravat, packed his barrels into a rented van, and, after some brief confusion getting out of downtown Manhattan, drove across the river to a different Williamsburg. (Same name, different namesake: Brooklyn’s Williamsburg was named for Jonathan Williams, who surveyed the area; Virginia’s was named for King William III.)

The cooper and his wife found a parking spot on Havemeyer Street and stopped at a bagel shop for lunch. The cooper looked up and pointed at a wooden water tower on a rooftop. “That’s cooperage!” he said. “I think they’re beautiful. I suppose to the average New Yorker they’re an eyesore. Kind of archaic.”

. . .

On Bedford Street, the cooper and his wife went into an apothecary. He surveyed the soap aisle; his wife bought a pack of Spree. Back on the street, they passed a branch of American Apparel and a few coffeehouses, but there was nary a wigmaker or a silversmith in sight.

. . .

The next stop was Mugs Ale House, which, lo and behold, had a decorative barrel in its back room. The cooper offered a critique. Pointing to one stave, he said, “This part here is pretty ugly. You see how the grain is really twisty?”