NEW YORK, NY November 16, 2009 —The city council has overwhelmingly approved a new five-minute grace period for certain parking violations before those bright orange tickets can be issued. However, Mayor Bloomberg is vowing to veto the bill. "A five-minute grace period is only going to lead to chaos, and enormous increases, I think, in contested tickets and arguments," Bloomberg says.

But the council, which approved the rule by a vote of 47 to 2, has enough votes to override any veto. Supporters say they believe the five-minute rule will end a "ticketing blitz" by the Bloomberg administration, and a "gotcha" attitude by traffic enforcers. An analysis by The New York Times found that, last year, 276,000 tickets were written within five minutes of alternate side parking rules going into effect. Of those, 28,000 were written at the exact moment the rules took effect.