But That’s Impossible, Especially When There Is No Such Thing As A Quota

A police officer files a suit over a practice that clearly doesn’t exist:

In a civil-rights suit filed this morning, veteran cop Craig Matthews says the quota system at the 42nd Precinct “has pitted police officers against each other, straining professional relationships and diverting resources away from law enforcement activities.”

Now things might be different if he called it a “productivity goal” . . .

It Has All The Makings Of A Perfect Bloomberg-Era Police Sting

The NYPD should stop the scourge of “loosies” — it certainly seems like they need more stuff to do. Besides, it would combine two of this administration’s favorite things — cracking down on cigarettes and fining business owners:

Bathroom attendants in several posh drinking spots are selling individual cigarettes, or loosies, for a buck a piece. It’s a misdemeanor under city and state law, but some wonder if the city is looking the other way when it comes to cracking down on loosie sales at upscale locales.

More than 5,000 people have been arrested for selling untaxed cigarettes and tobacco products in New York City since 2008, 247 so far this year, according to the NYPD. […] [A]n attorney with Legal Aid that often defends people who hawk loosies on the street, said he has never heard of a bathroom attendant being charged for the crime.

“It’s an interesting enforcement question. Why is one tolerated and one is not?” he said.

NYPD Paying Its Detectives To Go White-Water Rafting Upstate

What kind of impressive counterintelligence success merits this kind of snide attitude? Maybe he can explain that one:

Mayor Bloomberg defended the NYPD’s spying on Muslim students at Yale on Tuesday — but only after taking an odd trip down memory lane.

The Associated Press reported Saturday in an ongoing series that an undercover detective went white-water rafting with the students upstate.

“The only white-water rafting I’ve done, I did with my daughter,” Bloomberg said. “I don’t think she had a lot of information that I was interested in.”

The Problem With Hipster

Your neighborhood is either too cool, or not cool enough, for bikeshare kiosks:

The city’s new bike share program is set to offer thousands of wheels at 600 kiosks across Brooklyn and Manhattan beginning this summer — but the proposed plan leaves a significant chunk of Greenpoint without stations, according to a Department of Transportation draft.

Locals say there is a significant need for the program in the neighborhood, but the DOT’s recent map has not proposed bike kiosks east of [McGuinness] Boulevard, including McGolrick Park and other residential areas of Greenpoint.

In A World With No Trash, Trash Just Piles Up In A Different Part Of The World

Except that trash a zero-sum game, which just means that the bins at street-level will be worse:

Subway managers in October announced a bold and seemingly moronic experiment: They would remove the garbage cans from two subway stations to see if that would lead to less litter.

Surprisingly, it has been working — and the MTA is mulling whether to junk or expand the no-can pilot program.

. . .

Once again, our cynicism may have been overblown.

Considering the amount of garbage the MTA hauls from the subway — 14,000 tons a year — exploring any option that could reduce the burden is worthwhile. And since it’s working, the authority should expand the pilot — not junk it.