Okay New Yorkers, it's time to get serious about shoveling the snow off your sidewalk - before it costs you. The Sanitation Department says it has issued more than 2,500 tickets in the last month to owners who left their sidewalks slick and dangerous with ice and snow.
Clear Ice From Your Sidewalk or Get Fined
Okay New Yorkers, it’s time to get serious about shoveling the snow off your sidewalk – before it costs you. The Sanitation Department says it has issued more than 2,500 tickets in the last month to owners who left their sidewalks slick and dangerous with ice and snow.
Each one costs at least $100 – and as much as $350 for repeat violations.
“It’s important that property owners clear a path for pedestrians after a snowstorm,” said Sanitation spokesman Matthew LiPani. “Failure to do so is a major safety hazard for the young and elderly alike.”
It’s especially important this year as New York has been walloped with 56.9 inches of snow even before yesterday’s ice storm.
On one snowy stretch of 48th St. in Borough Park, Brooklyn, an inch of black ice in front of four adjacent homes yesterday sent passersby slipping and sliding.
“This is against Jewish law,” railed Meir Shalom Rosenberg, 58, after he almost fell. “By not shoveling, they are causing people to get hurt.”
Property owners have to clear ice and snow from their sidewalks within four hours of the last flake falling, city rules say. If it stops after 9 p.m., the deadline is extended until 11 a.m. the next morning.
If the ice is packed too hard to shovel, property owners are required to put down sand, sawdust or something else to give pedestrians traction.
None of the four homes on 48th St. bothered to do that, leaving neighbors to contend with an ice rink.
“I shoveled it before. The neighborhood kids come and mess it up,” whined one homeowner who wouldn’t give his name. “It’s gonna snow tomorrow and then there’s another snowstorm. It keeps coming. I shovel everyday. Why doesn’t the city come to help?”
Told a Daily News photographer was on the way to document just how bad his sidewalk was, he stopped kvetching, grabbed a shovel and started picking at the ice.
“Borough Park is pretty bad,” said eighth-grader Jeffery Liberman, 14, after he slipped next door. “People are not doing a good job. It’s pretty hard to walk.”
From the Dec. 26 blizzard through Sunday, Sanitation recorded 2,528 snow and ice tickets – 854 in Brooklyn, 852 in the Bronx, 702 in Queens, 94 in Staten Island and just 26 in Manhattan.
City crews had their own well-publicized troubles trying to clear the streets after the blizzard, but records at the Environmental Control Board show the department waited at least five days after that storm before ticketing any homeowners.
LiPani said anyone can call 311 to report a hazardous stretch of sidewalk, which will bring Sanitation officers out to inspect it.
DISGRACE!!!
I DON’T THINK THE SANITATION DEPARTMENT SHOULD TALK ABOUT THE WEATHER AND GIVING OUT TICKETS, THEY ARE THE ONES BEHIND THE BLIZZARD MESS LAST MONTH, IT IS THEIR FAULT BIG TIME, IT IS A BIG DISGRACE WHAT THEY DID AND WHAT THEY ARE DOING, IF I WAS THE SANITATION DEPARTMENT I WOULD NOT TALK ABOUT IT, BUT B”H I AM NOT THE SANITATION DEPARTMENT. WHY IS MATTHEW LIPANI TALKING ABOUT HAZARD FOR THE YOUNG AND ELDERLY ALIKE WHEN LOOK WHAT HE DID LAST MONTH BY THE BLIZZARD……(KILLING PEOPLE….) SO MUCH ICE AND SNOW THE CITY SHOULD COME AND HELP, THEY HAVE ALL OUR MONEY IN THEIR POCKETS ANYWAY, LET’S ALL CALL 311 AND COMPLAIN ABOUT LIPANI. WHY ARE THE SANITATION DEPARTMENT GIVING OUT TICKETS WHEN THEY THEMSELVES DID NOTHING AT THE TIME OF THE BLIZZARD ?? BECAUSE OF THEM ALL THE STREETS AND SIDEWALKS ARE LIKE THIS FROM LAST MONTH’S BLIZZARD UNTILL TODAY!!!
chayim yankel yakelovitch
ariel!!!! we love you
lloyd a cohen
You know what is the best part about this, all the cars on the street which makes clearing the area a great difficulty and then you clean and they replow you back in
senior citizen
It is important to clear the drains, and especially on streets where every house has a driveway, by tonight every driveway will look like a skating rink, so it’s also important to shovel a narrow strip at the edge of the road next to the sidewalk so water can run down to the drains
not store owner
with #1
Weinstein
I love MR. Weinstein
Pissed off Mom with a stroller
To all those homeowners who do not clear the sidewalks in from of their homes – beware! I will start calling 311 and report you. Don’t whine to me about not telling on a fellow Jew – If you were so careful about that mitzva, you would have shoveled so that the poor moms with strollers can get through.
Sara
SO WELL SAID!
Where is ‘AHAVAS YISROEL”? When you leave your sidewalk unshoveled, pedestrians trying to navigate past you either end up with a sprained back from the tension of trying not to fall, or we slip and have to think twice NOT to sue. Why DON’T you care about your neighbors??????!!!
malca bazyamn
and to who can we fine because the sanitation dept has failed to cleaned the intersection and left them full of us and peep like me slip, fall and get hurt
Concerned
For number 1 indeed the sanitation department has to do its job and so do we the citizens! It is our job to ensure that the sidewalk in front of our home and store is cleared or at least has a footpath, that means going out to shovel again and again until all of the snow has been removed and there is no snow/ice on the footpath. If you can’t do it yourself, hire someone, there are plenty of people looking to make an extra buck out there.
Pissed off reader
To comment #7, On behalf of crown heights “youre a *****” I think maybe you should spend a little more time shoveling and less time posting comments.
crown heights
I think #7 has every right to do that
oiss vorff
WATS WITH THE GARBAGE ? ITS TIME . TO DO A STORY ABOUT THE GARBAGE . THE TRUCKS DRIVE AROUND DOING NOTHING .
SHAME ON YOU SANATATION DEPT…
reuven
to #7- go for it! if you don’t u only have to deal with the self hating jew #11.
to #11- stop spreading ur legs and go out to help ur neighbor shovel snow.
Bas Yisroel
I can’t believe the language used here. Please clean up your act!
I LOVE THE SIDE WALK ON FRONT OF THAT FI
I LOVE THE SIDE WALK ON FRONT OF THAT FIRST HOUSEA AFTER THE BUILDING OF kol tuv ON MONTGOMERY ST
me too!
yea thats Berkowitz’s house, for some reason the snow does not stick to the sidewalk there ;)
rg
“I shoveled it before. The neighborhood kids come and mess it up,” whined one homeowner who wouldn’t give his name. “It’s gonna snow tomorrow and then there’s another snowstorm. It keeps coming. I shovel everyday. Why doesn’t the city come to help?”
Told a Daily News photographer was on the way to document just how bad his sidewalk was, he stopped kvetching, grabbed a shovel and started picking at the ice.
HAHAHAHAHA yes.. because the neighborhood kids come to HIS house to purposely shovel snow BACK onto his sidewalk! i love that.
chani
ummm, pissed off mom, shame on you your comment and thoughts are disgusting, and a shame on us that you live in the Rebbe’s hometown. If he were alive (physicallay) today, he would not encourage such thought. I live in canada, and the law holds that the CITY is responsible for the clearance of sidewalks that DO NOT belong to homeowners, it is city property, and a disgrace that they should hold the homeowners responsible as a way of getting out of the millions of dollars it would cost them to clean up. It’s not an option up here, it is mandatory.
crown heights
To number 17 that’s called a snow melt
TO #10 & # 13
TO # 10 YOU ARE WRONG!!!! TO # 13 YOU ARE 100 % RIGHT, I AGREE WITH YOU 100 % !!!!
out of town
I don’t know what all the fuss is about. It is your duty as a homeowner to shovel the snow of your lot. Period. If it’s mandotory from the city to do so, adhere to it and stop complaining!
smartie teen
hi everyone, im very shocked at the chutzpah that is going on here!
how can we talk to our fellow jews this way?
to the mother that couldnt get her stroller around she does have a point( its hard to get around and takes alot more effort) i dont think it has to go as far as reporting other jews. a jew DOES NOT get another jew in trouble, we have to do things in a respectful manner if we want things to get done.