The Paterson Police Department is not playing around when it comes to enforcing its new parking initiative.

It says it will enforce parking rules to help protect the city by issuing fines, tickets or even towing vehicles.

"When you park and you block a fire hydrant, when you park and obstruct the view of a motorist turning in an intersection, you're risking people's lives. People can die behind parking infractions,” says Paterson Police Officer-In-Charge Isas Abbassi. “We forget that...traffic safety has a direct relation to public safety and that's why we need to address this.”

It's called "Park Smart Paterson" and the idea is aimed at promoting responsible parking throughout the city with the hope of alleviating congestion for drivers and emergency vehicles.

Since enforcing the initiative on Monday, 96 violations have been given out and 16 vehicles were towed. The following day, even more could be seen being cited in front of the Center City Mall.

Police and city officials say that for decades they have dealt with illegal parking. They say that it was finally time to do something more aggressive about it.

"It's not at all just about writing tickets. This is for safety and safety is tantamount to our Paterson Police Department. This is not going to be our only initiative. We're going to do these all over the city,” says Deputy Chief Michael Saginario. “I just wanna give everybody fair warning, we will not tolerate lawlessness and parking wherever you want to park.”

Officials say that addressing parking violations helps drivers and emergency responders, but also pedestrians who are often put in dangerous situations because of illegal parking.

"Sometimes they also double park right in front of the pedestrian line so then people can't see us trying to cross the street, so this will help with that too,” says resident Stephanie Chavez.

The department says drivers can face serious consequences if they don't obey the initiative.