Most police summonses never go to OATH. Working out whether yours did is the first question.
And the answer has nothing to do with what you did. It is about what is printed on the paper.
Four places a summons can go
| Where | What goes there |
|---|---|
| OATH Hearings Division | A civil summons for a city rule with a fine attached. Littering, spitting, public urination, open container, noise, park rules, graffiti, riding on the sidewalk |
| DMV Traffic Violations Bureau | Moving violations. Speeding, red lights, that kind of thing |
| Finance Parking Violations Bureau | Parking, standing and stopping. Plus camera tickets: red light, speed, bus lane, school bus |
| Criminal Court | An appearance ticket telling you to go to court |
The rule that decides it is Administrative Code § 16-118(10). If your notice sets out “civil penalties only,” it goes to OATH.
And the officer picks. OATH’s own Chief Administrative Law Judge says so plainly: police officers can choose to write a summons for civil handling instead of criminal court.
OATH hears no parking tickets and no moving violations. The traffic price list that used to sit in OATH’s rules was thrown out.
One trap. The word “summons” tells you nothing. The Criminal Procedure Law says a notice that meets the definition of an appearance ticket is one, no matter what anyone calls it. And an OATH notice of violation gets called a summons all the time. Read the return line, not the heading.
What the charges cost
| Charge | Rule | First | Second | Third | If you don’t show |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Open container | AC § 10-125(b) | up to $25 | $25 | ||
| Public urination | AC § 16-118(6) | $75 | $250 (up to $350) | $350 (up to $450) | $112 |
| Littering | AC § 16-118(1)(a) | $75 | $300 | $400 | $112 |
| Spitting | AC § 16-118(1)(b) | $75 | $300 | $400 | $112 |
| Noise, 7am to 10pm | AC § 24-218(a) | $75 (up to $150) | $150 (up to $250) | $350 (up to $500) | $100 |
| Noise, 10pm to 7am | AC § 24-218(a) | $75 | $150 | $350 | $150 |
| Noise from a business | AC § 24-218(a-1) | $350 | $700 | $1,050 | $1,000 |
| Sound device over the permit level | AC § 10-108 | $250 | $500 | $750 | $250 |
| In a park after hours | 56 RCNY § 1-03(a)(3) | $50 | $75 | ||
| Alcohol in a park | 56 RCNY § 1-05(f)(1) | $25 | $25 | ||
| Graffiti | AC § 10-117(a) | $100 | $500 | ||
| Riding a bike on the sidewalk | AC § 19-176(b) | up to $100 | doubles within 6 months |
Four things that table hides.
Some of these are floors, not prices. The $75 first noise fine is the legal minimum. The maximum is $150, and by the third offence the range runs to $500. Repeat public urination is a range too. On those, you can argue the number, not just whether you did it.
Night noise does not cost more. The fine is the same day or night. Only the no-show price differs: $150 at night against $100 by day. If you show up, the time of day changes nothing.
“Second offence” is not always a year. Twelve months for the § 16-118 charges. Two years for noise. Six months for sidewalk bike riding.
Several tickets from one stop are still one violation. The rule defines a first violation as “any number of violations issued for a single incident.” One stop cannot be stacked into a second and third offence.
Doing it as a business changes everything. The same noise during business activity is charged under a different rule at $350 instead of $75, and you lose access to everything in the next two sections.
Community service instead of the fine
On these charges, if you are a person and not a business, the judge has to offer you community service instead of paying. Not may. Has to.
- Up to seven hours replaces a fine of up to $300, scaled up or down from there.
- There is no fee.
- One and two hour jobs can be done through OATH’s online course. Finishing it on or before your hearing date counts as admitting it and closes the case.
- It covers open container, littering, spitting, public urination, park rules and noise.
- The only thing that disqualifies you is doing it as a business. No income test, no hardship test, no first-offender rule.
Take it and then not do it, and the fine comes back. It is due 30 days from the decision, or 35 if it came by mail. Ask for more time through OATH’s Help Center before the deadline, and know that a refusal cannot be appealed. Filing an appeal on time pauses the community service, and you do not have to do it or pay in order to appeal.
The right nobody asks for
Charter § 1049(5) lets a judge throw the summons out in the interest of justice. Even when there is no legal reason to dismiss it. It is for when the circumstances make it the right thing to do.
The judge has to weigh nine things, one by one and together. How serious it was. What harm it caused. The evidence for and against, whether or not it could be used at a hearing. Your history and your situation. What the fine is meant to achieve. The effect on community safety. Public confidence in OATH. What the agency thinks. And whether upholding it does any good at all.
You can ask for it. So can the agency, or the judge. The judge has to say why on the record. It only exists for these specific charges.
This is a right written into the City Charter, not a favour. And it is the most overlooked thing available on one of these tickets.
About “no criminal record”
We want to be careful here, because the usual shorthand is not quite true, and the difference matters.
For the Administrative Code charges (littering, spitting, public urination, open container, noise) here is the accurate version. An OATH summons is a civil case. It gets you a fine, and if you don’t pay, a civil money judgment. Not a criminal conviction. The same act could have been charged criminally. The officer chose the civil route.
Park rules are different, and this is where people get it wrong. The park rule says a violation “shall also constitute an offense … which may be punished in a separate court proceeding,” and the starred ones “are also misdemeanors.” There, criminal exposure sits on top, not instead. So a park summons at OATH does not by itself rule out a separate criminal case for the same conduct.
There is no law anywhere saying an OATH summons creates no criminal record. Anyone who tells you there is has not looked.
If you don’t show up
Everything on the summons is treated as admitted, and you get the highest fine the law allows. That order becomes a civil judgment. It can be enforced without going to court, filed in Civil Court, capped at $25,000, and it stays alive for eight years.
The way out is on our hearing page. A first request to undo it, filed within 75 days, will be granted.
Where these numbers come from
There is no NYPD price list. We checked. Title 38 has no penalty schedule chapter, and OATH’s own set of agency price lists has no Police Department entry.
The numbers above come from four different places. The Administrative Code sections themselves, Sanitation’s list at 16 RCNY § 19-103, the Noise Code list at 15 RCNY § 47-02, and the Parks list at 56 RCNY § 1-07.
That is exactly why figures on a police summons get quoted wrong so often. There is no single table to quote them from.