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<FONT color=#0000ff>Woman Ticketed for Sitting on a Playground Bench with No Kids<!--mstheme--></FONT>
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<P>New York - It's an only in New York story.&nbsp; A woman was given a ticket for sitting on a park bench because she doesn't have children.</P>
<P>The Rivington Playground on Manhattan's East Side has a small sign at the entrance that says adults are prohibited unless they are accompanied by a child.&nbsp; Forty-seven-year-old Sandra Catena says she didn't see the sign when she sat down to wait for an arts festival to start.&nbsp; Two New York City police officers asked her if she was with a child.&nbsp; When she said no, they gave her a ticket that could bring a $1,000 fine and 90 days in jail.</P>
<P>The city parks department says the rule is designed to keep pedophiles out of city parks, but a parks spokesman told the Daily News that the department hoped police would use some common sense when enforcing the rule. The spokesman told the paper that ticketing a woman in the park in the middle of the day is not the way you want to enforce the rule.</P>
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<P>It happened to a woman from Jersey City.&nbsp; The ticket was given under city law designed to keep pedophiles out of city parks, but the woman says the city went too far.&nbsp; The Rivington Playground is a lovely place for parents to take their young children.&nbsp; It is even protected by a rule that prevents adults from sitting there without a child - and apparently they mean it.&nbsp; Ask Sandra Catena, a dance instructor from Jersey City who walked into the park on Saturday while she was waiting for an arts festival to begin, when she was approached by two police officers.</P>
<P>Sandra Catena, Dance Instructor: "They said it's against the law, you have to be accompanied by a child to sit in a kiddie park and they were giving me a summons.&nbsp; I said 'you're kidding right?' and he said 'no.'"</P>
<P align=center><IMG height=240 src="http://www.flatrock.org.nz/topics/education/assets/wabc_092705_bench4.jpg" width=320 border=0></P>
<P>Already guarded by two officers, one of whom had his hand on his gun, according to Catena, two more police officers soon arrived and stood nearby with their hands on their guns in case there was trouble - from the dance instructor.&nbsp; But there was no trouble.&nbsp; They wrote the summons and now the dance instructor has to face the bar of justice for her ... crime.</P>
<P>Source: <A href="http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=local&amp;id=3480711">abclocal.go.com</A> WABC 27 September 2005 © Associated Press all rights reserved</P>

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