Another Assembly Vote Today : N.Y.P.D. Pizza Cars Heading Toward Red Light

The Assembly, on a 51-8 vote, passed a measure Wednesday that would outlaw an expanding San Diego-based pizza restaurant chain’s delivery cars because they look too much like police cars.

But before the measure by Assemblyman Steve Peace (D-Chula Vista) can be sent to the Senate, one assemblyman who voted inadvertently forced another vote on the measure today.

Peace predicted that the outcome will be the same when the measure is reconsidered today as “a courtesy” to Assemblyman Richard E. Floyd (D-Hawthorne).

Floyd said he wasn’t paying attention when Peace “mumbled through” the bill, saying it was “non-controversial.” But afterward, Floyd denounced the measure as a “stupid bill” addressing a non-existent problem that “nobody in the world except Steve Peace and somebody who owns a pizza place cares about.”

“For all I know, somebody’s brother-in-law owns a Domino Pizza place down the block,” Floyd said.

Besides throwing roadblocks in the path of San Diego pizza restaurant owner Daniel Crotta’s “little gimmick,” Floyd said Peace’s bill could create difficulties for private security companies, which legitimately have insignias and mounted light bars on their cars.

The bill would make it illegal to own or operate a car designed to resemble any police agency patrol car, and would specifically prohibit the installation of light bars--even non-working or fake ones--atop any non-cop car.

Crotta, a 36-year-old lawyer who has been in the pizza restaurant business since 1972, renamed his Mission Valley outlet the New York Pizza Department (N.Y.P.D.) last year and began making plans to expand it into a national chain, using an elaborate police motif as a sales gimmick. Each outlet will be decorated as a “precinct.” Employees wear police uniforms and issue receipts that are labeled “citation.”

But what Peace and San Diego city officials find troubling is that the white sedans Crotta uses for delivery cars have N.Y.P.D. markings and fake light bars. San Diego police complain that the cars look too much like their squad cars, and the City Council asked for legislation to make them illegal.

Peace said the cars pose a danger to the public, who might mistake a pizza delivery vehicle for a police car, and to Crotta’s employees, who might find themselves “targets,” as real police patrolmen are.

Although Crotta and police officials discussed the design of the cars for several months, they never agreed on a design.

“I think the problem is that you have a young guy who thinks he has a million-dollar idea and he has fallen in love with it,” Peace said.

Peace said he tried unsuccessfully to convince Crotta that using very old delivery cars, like New York police might have used several decades ago, would be a better marketing gimmick. Peace said Crotta seems like “a nice guy” and “a straight shooter,” but added:

“It is a classic example of a lawyer trying to become a businessman.”

Crotta says there are four new N.Y.P.D. outlets under construction--two in San Diego County and two in Los Angeles County. He said two other outlets are in the planning and design stages in Ventura and San Mateo counties.

For the moment, he has no plans to change his theme.

“Hopefully, tomorrow’s outcome will be different,” Crotta said.