There's no local news segment we love more than Arnold Diaz's Shame Shame Shame! series. Previously, Diaz has shamed Martha Stewart and her dangerous chairs, the "drunken negro" cookie baker, and the United Homeless Organization. The newest inductee into the Fox 5 Hall of Shame is the Supreme Parking lot across from the Queens Supreme Court on Sutphin Boulevard. Their crime? Bogarting metered parking spots with DOT and DEP traffic cones, and then selling the spots to desperate motorists.
Diaz scores some sweet hidden camera footage of the scam, showing Supreme Parking employees setting up official-looking cones on the street early in the morning to block off the metered parking outside the courthouse, where parking is already a nightmare. Then a Fox 5 producer rolls into the lot with a hidden camera, and an employee offers her one of the metered spots for $20, promising to feed the meter for her. She's then waved over to one of the reserved spots, and cones are whisked away.
When confronted about the scam, one employee says he's just doing people a favor by feeding the meter for them. Diaz contacted the DOT, who told him it's the NYPD's job to police the metered parking spots. Of course, a spokesman for the NYPD told Diaz it's the DOT's job! Perhaps the most galling part of the segment is when they catch indolent meter maids shuffling past the coned-off spots without bothering to do a damn thing about it. For his next report, Diaz needs to induct one of these traffic cops to the great shame hall. Watch the entire episode below:
