How’s this for a negative?
The massive Revlon “Kiss Cam” in Times Square not only draws thousands of selfie-obsessed tourists — it also attracts pervs looking to grope and rub up against them, the city’s top cop said Friday.
The groping problem is so bad that Revlon has agreed to shut down the camera every day for 12 hours starting at 7:30 p.m., which NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton called “the witching hour” Friday.
“After 8 p.m. they come out, the predators,” Bratton said at a New York Law School breakfast. “We’ve arrested a bunch of them.”
Tourists throng in front of the camera on Broadway to see their smiling faces projected on a jumbo screen over the Crossroads of the World.
With the packed-in tourists distracted, taking pictures of themselves on the screen, the perverts go to work, Bratton said.
“You would think something being photographed would deter them,” Bratton said. “But, just the opposite . . . it encourages them.”
The cosmetics giant snapped the shutter closed for the first time Monday night, officials said.
“We have followed the NYPD’s lead on these matters and will continue to do so,” a Revlon spokesman said Friday.
Cops noticing a surge in complaints near the Kiss Cam, especially at night, say that six gropings took place under the jumbo screen over an 11-day span, between Aug. 28 and Sept. 8, officials said.
In a trial, the NYPD turned the gizmo off for the following 11 nights and into the wee hours, and the incidents dropped to a flat zero.
A source with knowledge of discussion between the NYPD and Revlon said the Times Square Alliance had noticed a problem at the Kiss Cam in June, but Revlon was initially hesitant to shut it off.
In response, the Alliance put tables with umbrellas into the plaza as a barricade, the source said.
Bratton described the Kiss Cam gropings as “the biggest crime problem we have there.”
“People are so intent on taking selfies of themselves they don’t realize that someone is grabbing their butt while they’re taking their photo,” he said.
