Shovelgate

Here is a video from NECN about Worcester's newest oddball city council ordinance about shoveling sidewalks within 10 hours of the end of the snowfall.

They are actually talking about this now on channel 12 and I can't look away. Haller really sounds like she wants to reeducate homeowners thru enforcement and fines. Kate Toomey making the most sense asking about provisions for elderly people who are broke and are not capable of shoveling or paying to have the work completed. Someone basically said tough cookies and the responsibility is on the home owner.

They also read the language of the ordinance which states if there is a complaint and an officer goes to a house and no one is home the house is automatically fined. If someone is home they will be given "x" amount of hours to clear the snow before they are fined.

So if you read this ordinance to the letter of the law it could stop snowing at 10pm and an officer could come to my door at noontime the next day while I am at work and be automatically fined. And if they go to unemployed Joe Blow's house down the street who is unemployed and sitting on his ass all day playing X Box is given a few hour grace period to put down the bong and go shovel.

That is absolute bullshit. Rosen just read my mind and pretty much stated the same thing. 10 hours is much too small of a window it should have to be 24 hours at least. When we hired our snowplow company for this winter here at the lofts we had to pay $800 to $1,000 more by adding in that they also have to snowblow all of our sidewalks, which take up a good amount land on the corners of Illinois and Gates streets.