Sidewalks of New York

Even the Drudge Report picked up the story, from The Brooklyn Paper, about the 6-year-old girl from Park Slope who is facing a $300 fine from the city of New York for doing, as the Brooklyn Paper put it, "what city kids have been doing for decades: drawing a pretty picture with common sidewalk chalk." It seems that a neighbor called 311 about the child's sidewalk drawing and the next that happens is that the Sanitation Department sends a written order: "PLEASE REMOVE THE GRAFFITI FROM YOUR PROPERTY," it said, according to the report in the Brooklyn Paper. "FAILURE TO COMPLY … MAY RESULT IN AN ENFORCEMENT ACTION AGAINST YOU."

It turns out that this followed the passage, in 2005, of Local Law 111, though New York's Strongest may have used an overly broad intepretation of the law to go after six-year-old Natalie Shea. Her mother, Jen Pepperman, is quoted by the Brooklyn Paper as ticking off all sorts of daily insults to common decency on her Brooklyn block, dog excrement to garbage to car alarms. Instead, the law came after a six-year-old for drawing on her own front stoop.

The Brooklyn Paper quoted Ms. Pepperman as calling the whole thing "ridiculous." A Sanitation Department spokesman is actually defending the letter on the grounds that the city is trying to crack down on grafitti. The Brooklyn Paper says that if the department is right it's like "criminalizing hopscotch." If this is what results from the setting up of 311, they should set up a new system — so that New Yorkers can dial a hotline and ask for a new administration.