Aaron Hardy was sick and tired of people parking in front of his Staten Island house and blocking his driveway. He put up a “No Parking” sign on the chain-link fence out front, warning that \u201cunauthorized vehicles will be towed away.\u201d But it kept happening.<\/p>\n
So, last Friday, Hardy, 52, decided he wasn\u2019t going to take it anymore.<\/p>\n
When he spotted a gray 2015 Jeep Compass blocking his driveway in the borough’s Stapleton neighborhood, he attached a boot to the vehicle\u2019s front left tire, locking it in place, and left a note on the windshield, Staten Island prosecutors said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI seen you looked at the do not park sign and still park there $25 to take the boot off,\u201d the note read, followed by a phone number, according to the criminal complaint.<\/p>\n
The driver of the vehicle, who had parked at about 7:30 a.m., discovered the boot at around 3 p.m., the complaint said. Hardy told police at the scene that he had \u201cpapers that I could do this,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a no parking sign here; she was blocking my driveway,\u201d Hardy told police, according to a summary included in the complaint. He then removed the boot with a key.<\/p>\n
Hardy was taken to the 120th Precinct stationhouse, where police discovered an electronic stun gun in his pants, resulting in a felony weapon possession charge, according to the complaint.<\/p>\n
Hardy has also been charged with coercion in the third degree, attempted petit larceny and attempted criminal possession of stolen property in the fifth degree.<\/p>\n
Hardy\u2019s lawyer, Kelvin Richards, acknowledged Hardy had booted the car. But he said the driver had interfered with a car wash and repair business that Hardy runs out of his driveway.<\/p>\n
Hardy claimed he called 311 and was told he could boot the car blocking his driveway, according to Richards, who said he had not yet confirmed the account. New York City has no provision for angry residents to boot other people\u2019s cars without a license to do so.<\/p>\n
Hardy\u2019s neighbors on Waverly Place, a dead-end block about 1.5 miles from Stapleton Waterfront Park, didn\u2019t condone what Hardy did, but they understood his frustration. Ever since P.S. 84 opened on the block in 2022, teachers, staff and parents have competed for spots on this small street, often inconveniencing residents.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery day it\u2019s a zoo for parking,\u201d said Vincent Barranco, a plumber who has lived on the street for seven years. \u201cParking is very hard here, especially with the new school.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barranco said he finds a car blocking his driveway once or twice a month. In early September, he found one vehicle blocking his driveway and another blocking his work truck, and he had to take another vehicle to the job.<\/p>\n
Barranco said he\u2019s tried calling police at the local precinct, but they don\u2019t respond with the urgency he thinks is called for. The most they will do is ticket the car, rather than tow it away and free up people\u2019s access to their driveways, he said.<\/p>\n
Still, he thought that Hardy went too far.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou shouldn\u2019t block a driveway, number one. But that doesn\u2019t give you the right to boot somebody\u2019s car,\u201d Barranco said. “First of all, why did he even own a boot? That’s not something a normal person has.”<\/p>\n
Denzel Green, a paraprofessional who has lived in the neighborhood for four years, called the booting \u201cway out of pocket.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDoing something to somebody else\u2019s property is already against the law, and then trying to charge them for it is a whole \u2018nother crime on top of that. Quit while you’re ahead, boss,\u201d Green said.<\/p>\n
Hardy is back at work, Richards said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s still adamant that people cannot park in front of his business,\u201d Richards said. \u201cI just told him he should be careful.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aaron Hardy was sick and tired of people parking in front of his Staten Island house and blocking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-369134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}