$150 fines for not shoveling your sidewalk within 12 hours...

[kalimba21.livejournal.com]

According to the Somerville Journal, the next thing the city is trying to get approved is a standard $150 first offense fine for non shoveling within 12 hours of a storm, 4 hours for businesses. This is up from $25 and 12 hours for both residents and businesses. Repeat offense will be $300. Probably the biggest part of this is they are looking to have it enforced by the people who write the parking tickets, currently it is the city's Inspectional Services dept. who write the tickets.

Comments

[m00n.livejournal.com]

I think I made my point.

Basically if you are too frail to shovel it yourself you should either hire someone to shovel it for you or sell your house.

[whaler.livejournal.com]

That's kind of bullshit.

[m00n.livejournal.com]

Well the two other options are: Leave the walk unshoveled, which I think isn't really an option at all, or get the city to do it, in which case they would most likely have to find a way to pay for it. That would probably mean raising taxes more, which a lot of fixed-income (i.e. elderly) people usually object to. You can't have it both ways really.

[srakkt.livejournal.com]

Like hell it is. The responsibilities of homeownership don't go away simply because we'd like them to for whatever reason. If indeed a homeowner is unable to shovel, it is entirely reasonable to expect them to hire a service to do so.