After receiving tickets for parking in spaces he’d never been to — all from the same traffic agent — Robert Dickstein discovered his neighbors had suffered the same indignity. Now the city is investigating.

By Megan James

Something didn’t smell right when Robert Dickstein opened a letter from the city Department of Finance last month, urging him to pay up on an overdue parking ticket he had never seen before. When he checked the details online, he knew something was awry — the ticket had been issued for illegally parking on West 252nd Street, a place he never has reason to go.

A handful of Riverdalians now say they are facing similar bogus parking tickets, each one issued for double parking or illegal parking in front of the same few locations, and each one signed by the same traffic control agent.

After receiving the letter, Mr. Dickstein, a retired psychologist, drove over to the scene of his alleged offense — armed with a camera — and found there were no signs restricting parking on that block. He snapped some pictures of the street, the house and the lack of parking signs, and brought them with him to court.

The judge ruled the parking enforcement officer had made a mistake and dismissed the $115 ticket, Mr. Dickstein said.

He might have let the issue go right then if last week his wife, Cynthia, hadn’t run into a neighbor upset about receiving a similarly bizarre parking ticket. The neighbor regularly parks her car outside her home on Netherland Avenue, on the same block the Dicksteins park theirs.

Worried there might be more outstanding tickets he didn’t know about, Mr. Dickstein went straight to the Department of Finance’s Web site and entered his car’s license plate number.

Sure enough, another ticket had been issued for double-parking in front of 5670 Riverdale Ave., across the street from the Food Emporium, on Sept. 19. On the Dicksteins’ second car, one more ticket for double-parking in front of 5656 Riverdale Ave. had been issued on Sept. 25. Finally, the Dicksteins’ daughter typed in her car’s license plate number and found she had a double-parking offense in front of 5670 Riverdale Ave., issued on Sept. 29.