Astoria Cops Crack Down On Street-Clogging 'Piece Of Cake' Trucks

ASTORIA, QUEENS — After months of complaints, police have begun ticketing and towing the moving trucks that residents say have flagrantly broken city laws by parking on Astoria's residential streets overnight.

Astoria's NYPD precinct posted photos on social media Friday morning showing multiple commercial vehicles being towed and issued tickets for overnight parking violations. At least four of the trucks appeared to belong to Piece of Cake, the pink-branded moving company that has faced the neighborhood's ire for months.

An NYPD spokesperson confirmed that seven commercial vehicles were towed and issued summonses within the 114th Precinct between Thursday evening and Friday morning, though the exact locations were not specified.

"It is absolutely wonderful. I am so happy," said Florence Koulouris, district manager of Community Board 1, who has spent weeks compiling residents' complaints about the trucks.

It was unclear why enforcement had begun now, but Koulouris said she had been working closely with the 114th Precinct and with the mayor's office of community affairs to seek action. (City law bans commercial vehicles from parking on residential streets after 9 p.m.)

That came after an attempt at diplomacy with Piece of Cake had failed, Koulouris said. Last month, she told the company that she would not contact police if Piece of Cake managed to improve its overnight parking practices by June 3.

But Piece of Cake showed "no regard, no respect for that deadline," Koulouris said — adding that the trucks seemed even more omnipresent since Patch first wrote about them last month.

After asking residents in late May to share photos of the trucks parked around the neighborhood, Koulouris said she has received at least five emails per day from Astorians documenting the vehicles.

"People from the community have been absolutely wonderful since we started this," Koulouris said. "They’ve been emailing, they’ve been calling 311. It’s been a really good thing."

Piece of Cake's CEO, Voyo Popovic, told Patch last month that the company had drawn up "a robust plan" to stem the truck tide, and would open a new Queens parking lot by August that would help address the issue.

Reached for comment on Friday, Popovic defended the company's response, pointing again to the upcoming parking lot — and saying he had tried unsuccessfully to connect with the 114th Precinct.

"Following the initial inquiry, Piece of Cake contacted the local NYPD precinct this July offering them a tour of our parking facilities and to discuss and clarify the commercial parking related issues flagged to us," Popovic said. "Unfortunately, we never heard back from the NYPD regarding this matter."

About 80 percent of Piece of Cake's "mover workforce" live in Astoria, Long Island City, and other nearby neighborhoods, and would park their trucks on residential streets in order to stay close to home, Popovic has explained.

"We are dedicated to the communities we live and operate in and believe that the actions we’ve promptly put in place will alleviate the concerns expressed to us," Popovic said Friday.

Besides their parking practices, residents have surfaced other complaints about Piece of Cake. One organizer for the 31st Avenue Open Street told Patch last month about an April incident in which a truck from Simply Moving — a company owned by Piece of Cake — ran over and destroyed one of the street's tables after employees were unwilling to wait a few minutes to enter the street.

Piece of Cake was first launched in 2018 and expanded rapidly during the pandemic, according to a 2021 profile by Fortune. By last May, it had a fleet of more than 50 trucks and more than 300 employees.

Related coverage: Street-Clogging Astoria Moving Trucks Come Under Residents' Scrutiny

This story has been updated to include comment from Piece of Cake CEO Voyo Popovic.