Eastern Queens residents with city-issued summonses won’t have to travel outside of their neighborhood to visit the New York City Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings (OATH) to dispute their summons.
OATH’s upcoming Neighborhood Pop-up Court for city-issued summonses will be held at the Hollis Queens Public Library Branch at 202-05 Hillside Ave. on Tuesday, Sept. 24, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., announced Assemblyman David Weprin and Councilman Barry Grodenchik.
“Busy New Yorkers from across the city deserve an opportunity to fairly challenge administrative summonses received from the city of New York in person,” Weprin said. “By bringing an Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings (OATH) Neighborhood Pop-Up Court to Hollis, the residents of my Assembly district will have the opportunity to dispute a summons at a hearing close to their homes, in person and in front of a hearing officer.
The pop-up court allows people to fight certain summonses at a hearing with an OATH Hearing Officer. According to Grodenchik, OATH has hearing division locations in all five boroughs, but traveling from Eastern Queens to Long Island City is sometimes difficult.
“Having the pop-up court right here in the neighborhood helps make justice more accessible. I thank OATH for this valuable program and am grateful to Hollis Library for hosting the pop-up court,” Grodenchik said.
“The Council has played a significant role in partnering with OATH to bring Neighborhood Pop-Up Courts to communities throughout the city. OATH thanks the Assembly member and the Council member for taking the lead to help provide greater access to justice and make it more convenient for residents and small businesses to challenge their summonses,” said John Castelli, OATH’s deputy commissioner for Legislative Affairs.
The types of summonses eligible to be fought at the Pop-Up Court are summonses issued by the Sanitation Department and Parks Department; the Health Department for alleged pest control and rodent violations; and non-criminal, quality-of-life summonses issued by the NYPD — such as allegedly having an open container of alcohol, public urination, being in the park after dark, littering and excessive noise, among others.
As with all summonses, only summonses with upcoming hearing dates are eligible to have a hearing at either OATH or at one of OATH’s Pop-Up Courts. This means that the eligible summons must have either a hearing date of Sept. 24 or a hearing date that is after that. OATH is not the court that holds hearings on parking tickets, traffic or speeding tickets, red light camera tickets or MTA turnstile violation summonses; therefore, those summonses cannot be resolved at the Pop-Up Court on Sept. 24.
Full translation services will be available in up to 250 languages. Respondents will be sent the Hearing Officer’s decision in the mail within seven days.
“As the City’s central independent administrative law court, OATH’s top priority is to make it as easy as possible for those who have been issued summonses from city enforcement agencies to have their day in court. Our Neighborhood Pop-Up Courts program brings the court to where you work and live so that fighting city summonses and accessing justice at OATH is more convenient and less time consuming,” said Marisa Senigo, OATH’s deputy commissioner for Public Affairs.
