Filed Date: 7/17/1980
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 7/5/2016
Hon. Robert C. Morris City Attorney City of Glens Falls
This is in response to your request for an opinion on whether the City of Glens Falls has the authority to regulate the use of portions of a City park located in the adjacent Town of Queensbury and, if so, whether City police or Town police may enforce the City park ordinance in the area in question. You have further requested us to advise you in which court, City or Town, prosecutions for violations of the City park ordinance, committed in those portions of the park outside the City limits, may be maintained.
Although your letter states that the City's authority to regulate parklands — set forth in the City Charter — does not extend to such lands outside the City, you have advised us that the City Charter is silent on this point. It is, therefore, necessary initially to consider whether the City has authority to regulate portions of a City park situated outside the City limits.
Since General City Law, §
With respect to the authority of City police to enforce the City's park ordinance outside the City's boundaries, the Criminal Procedure Law provides that a police officer may arrest a person for a petty offense only when the offense is committed within the geographical area of the officer's employment (CPL §
While those portions of the City park located in the Town are obviously within the geographical area of employment of the Town police, the question arises as to whether Town police can enforce a park ordinance enacted by the City. The Criminal Procedure Law expressly provides that, subject to geographical limitations of authority, "a police officer may arrest a person [without warrant] for any offense * * * committed * * * in his presence" (section 140.10 [1] [a] [emphasis supplied]) or may issue an appearance ticket whenever "authorized pursuant to section 140.10 to arrest a person without a warrant for an offense other than a felony" (section 150.20 [1]). Thus, the Town police have the authority to enforce the City park ordinance in the portion of the park outside the City limits.
We also call your attention to CPL, §
Similarly, City police, patrolling the City and adjacent Town portions of the park during the course of their normal duties, as private citizens could enforce the City park ordinance outside the territorial limits of the City. In this respect, the question posed by you regarding the territorial jurisdiction of the City police is not unlike the situation discussed in an earlier opinion of this office (1935 Op Atty Gen 45), wherein the Palisades Interstate Park Police, statutorily limited in their powers to the territory of the park, were faced with supervising the daily arrival and departure, from points outside the park, of several thousand men working on relief projects within the park. Thus, the question arose as to the authority of the police to function outside the limits of their territorial jurisdiction. The Attorney General there ruled that arrests made for acts committed in the presence of a park officer outside the park were proper since in this instance a private person could legally make an arrest (citing CCP, § 183 [now CPL
With respect to the court(s) in which the City park ordinance could be enforced, it will not be enforceable in the City Court since territorial jurisdiction of municipal courts is generally confined to the corporate limits (People v Osborne,