City rips up $26M in bad tix

IT’S CHRISTMAS in November!

The city has dismissed or refunded $26 million in parking fines after a paperwork snafu voided more than half a million tickets, officials said Monday.

Drivers who received tickets for failing to display a MuniMeter receipt, or having an expired receipt, are off the hook because the wrong violation code was printed on their ticket.

The Department of Finance gave out 400,860 refunds for tickets totaling about $18 million, and another 106,808 dismissals for tickets that had not yet been paid, totaling $8 million, a spokeswoman said.

The costly foulup was first reported by 1010 WINS.

The tickets cost $65 or $35 each, depending on where they were written.

The trouble started in April with a one-digit change in the traffic rules section that covers the violation, from 4-08h10 to 4-08h1. The mistake was caught in July.

Tickets were issued to motorists and they weren’t updated to reflect the change — rendering them void under city law.

The “summons(es) issued to your vehicle(s) for either failing to display a parking meter receipt or displaying a parking meter receipt while parked in a parking meter zone contained an error and will be administratively dismissed,” the lucky drivers are told in a letter.