City wants to milk mom out of $115 for breast-feeding infant in Manhattan commercial zone

April 12-- Apr. 12--No breast-feeding in commercial zones!

Her hungry 3-week-old daughter was wailing, and Guillermina Rodriguez couldn't find a parking spot, so she pulled over in what she thought was a safe place -- a commercial zone down the block from Penn Station.

The decision to tend to her daughter proved costly and nearly got her towed.

As she nursed her infant Eliana in the back seat of her Toyota Suburban on Thursday, an NYPD traffic agent hit her with a $115 parking ticket, the mom told the Daily News.

Later, Rodriguez and a breast-feeding advocate blasted the fine as unnecessary and insensitive.

Rodriguez, 30, who lives in Washington heights, had just dropped off her husband near Times Square so he could make a dental appointment Thursday morning when her daughter, Eliana Torres, started wailing.

"I have to pull over to breast-feed her. I don't wanna double park," she told The News. "I see this commercial sign, but it says no standing, of course, but where are you going to find parking downtown?" She stopped on 8th Ave. between 30th and 31st Sts.

So she pulled in around 11:30 a.m., got into the backseat, and, she said, within two or three minutes an NYPD traffic agent pulled up with a tow truck, getting ready to haul away her SUV.

"I honk so that he knows there's somebody there," Rodriguez recounted. "He looks inside, I'm showing him my breast, I'm breast-feeding the baby. He turned his head. He sees me but he still gives me the ticket."

Rodriguez took a brief video after getting the ticket, showing the back of the agent's tow truck, then showing her feeding little Eliana. "I'm here, breast-feeding my child, and he still gave me a ticket. Yep. Breastfeeding my baby, and he still gave me a ticket. Very nice," she said in the recording.

Frustrated, Rodriguez said she searched the internet on her cell phone, and came upon the website for the breastfeeding advocacy group La Leche League. From there, she said, reached out to Laura Beth Gilman, an Upper West Side breastfeeding counselor.

"I understand it's the law, but seriously, what am I supposed to do, let the child scream?" Rodriguez said.

Gilman said the traffic agent should have treated her situation like an emergency.

"If she had a flat tire, would he have given her a ticket? If she had a health emergency ... would he have given her a ticket? She had an emergency," Gilman told The News. "She found the first safe spot she could and she rectified the emergency."

Gilman said she thinks the ticket should be thrown out, and traffic agents should receive better training to handle such situations.

"You're genetically predisposed to respond to your baby's cry. It's supposed to make you crazy. You're being a good mom if you respond," she said. "This is an opportunity to educate people, and to start a conversation. When is it in an emergency?"

The NYPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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