Opinion
No. 2023-424 WCR
03-14-2024
The People of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Robert Willoughby, Appellant.
Robert Willoughby, appellant pro se. Mount Vernon Corporation Counsel (Christine Lombert of counsel), for respondent.
Robert Willoughby, appellant pro se.
Mount Vernon Corporation Counsel (Christine Lombert of counsel), for respondent.
PRESENT: JERRY GARGUILO, P.J., JAMES P. McCORMACK, GRETCHEN WALSH, JJ
Appeal from three judgments of the City Court of Mount Vernon, Westchester County (Lyndon D. Williams, J.), rendered February 28, 2023. The judgments convicted defendant, after a nonjury trial, of, respectively, failing to display an inspection certificate on December 3, 2021, failing to display an inspection certificate on March 2, 2022, and parking an unregistered vehicle in violation of Code of the City of Mount Vernon § 256-8.1 (A), and imposed sentences.
ORDERED that the judgments of conviction are affirmed.
Following a nonjury trial, defendant was convicted of failing to display an inspection certificate (Vehicle and Traffic Law § 306 [b]) on December 3, 2021, failing to display an inspection certificate on March 2, 2022, and parking an unregistered vehicle in violation of Code of the City of Mount Vernon (Code) § 256-8.1 (A). On appeal, defendant contends, among other things, that Code § 256-8.1 (A) is preempted by the Vehicle and Traffic Law and, in effect, that the evidence was legally insufficient to establish his guilt of failing to display an inspection certificate.
Code § 256-8.1 (A) provides that "[n]o person shall park a vehicle on a public highway or in a parking space located within the City unless said vehicle bears [a] valid registration, properly affixed to and displayed upon said vehicle pursuant to the New York State Vehicle and Traffic Law." Code § 256-2 defines "parking space" as "[t]hat part of any street or of any municipal parking area designated by ordinance or regulation as a place for the parking of vehicles." Defendant does not dispute that his unregistered vehicle was parked in a municipal parking lot.
The provisions of the Vehicle and Traffic Law are intended to be "uniform throughout this state" (Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1600). No local government or municipality may "enact or enforce any local law, ordinance, order, rule or regulation in conflict with the provisions of [the Vehicle and Traffic Law] unless expressly authorized" to do so (id.). However, the Vehicle and Traffic Law authorizes Mount Vernon to "prohibit, restrict or limit the stopping, standing or parking of vehicles upon property owned or leased by" Mount Vernon (Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1640 [b]). So much of Code § 256-8.1 (A) as prohibits the parking of an unregistered vehicle in a municipal parking area falls within this delegation of authority, defeating defendant's field preemption claim (see People v Torres, 37 N.Y.3d 256, 268 [2021]; see also Garcia v New York City Dept. of Health & Mental Hygiene, 31 N.Y.3d 601, 620-621 [2018]; Jancyn Mfg. Corp. v County of Suffolk, 71 N.Y.2d 91, 98 [1987]).
Defendant's conflict preemption claim is also without merit. "The state law does not permit [the parking of an unregistered vehicle in a 'municipal parking area'], nor is there any indication that the City is somehow constrained in prohibiting it" (People v Torres, 37 N.Y.3d at 269; see Vehicle and Traffic Law § 402 [6]; Garcia v New York City Dept. of Health & Mental Hygiene, 31 N.Y.3d at 619-620; Eric M. Berman, P.C. v City of New York, 25 N.Y.3d 684, 691 [2015]).
In view of the foregoing, this court need not determine whether so much of Code § 256-8.1 (A) as prohibits the parking of an unregistered vehicle on a "public highway" or on "[t]hat part of any street... designated by ordinance or regulation as a place for the parking of vehicles" (Code § 256-2) is preempted by the Vehicle and Traffic Law.
With respect to the legal sufficiency of the evidence supporting defendant's convictions of failing to display an inspection certificate, defendant argues, in effect, that there was no evidence that his vehicles were parked on a "public highway," an element of a violation of Vehicle and Traffic Law § 306 (b). Vehicle and Traffic Law § 134 defines a "public highway" as "[a]ny highway, road, street, avenue, alley, public place, public driveway or any other public way." A "highway" is defined in Vehicle and Traffic Law § 118 as "[t]he entire width between the boundary lines of every way publicly maintained when any part thereof is open to the use of the public for purposes of vehicular travel." Here, defendant concedes that, on the relevant dates and times, his uninspected vehicles were parked in a municipal parking lot. We hold that the municipal parking lot here falls within the definition of "highway" in Vehicle and Traffic Law § 118 (see Groninger v Village of Mamaroneck, 17 N.Y.3d 125, 129 [2011]; cf. People v Thew, 44 N.Y.2d 681, 682 [1978]; People v Crespo, 76 Misc.3d 10, 12 [App Term, 2d Dept, 9th & 10th Jud Dists 2022]). Thus, when viewed in the light most favorable to the People (see People v Contes, 60 N.Y.2d 620, 621 [1983]), the evidence was legally sufficient to establish defendant's guilt, beyond a reasonable doubt, of failing to display an inspection certificate.
Defendant's remaining contention regarding the training of Mount Vernon's parking enforcement officers is beyond the scope of this appeal.
Accordingly, the judgments of conviction are affirmed.
GARGUILO, P.J., McCORMACK and WALSH, JJ., concur.