Property owners are pleading with the summons-happy city: if you really want to make the streets less icy, put down your ticket books and pick up a bag of salt.
The Department of Sanitation has issued a staggering 4,000 tickets to property owners for icy sidewalks in the last week alone – at $100 to $350 apiece. That’s almost half the number written all last winter.
“The city will give tickets left and right because they need money,” said Herta Fleher, 76, who owns a brownstone on the Upper West Side and whose neighbor was recently ticketed. “They use every little excuse to give it to you.”
While officials are busy writing summonses, angry New Yorkers pointed out that plenty of city-owned properties are coated with thick ice.
“It’s really an outrageous irony that the Department of Sanitation seems to be spending more time giving homeowners tickets than cleaning streets it’s responsible for,” fumed Councilman Michael McMahon (D-Staten Island), who heads the City Council’s Sanitation Committee. “The bus stops are horrendous. Sidewalks around parks and city buildings are in bad shape.”
While the pathways of Central Park looked free and clear yesterday, outer-borough parkland was glistening and slippery. Joggers on the Coney Island boardwalk had to navigate treacherous sheets of ice.
In Brooklyn, the 15th Street entrance to Prospect Park was completely covered with ice yesterday morning, forcing nanny Carol Phillip, 38, to go in search of a safer entrance for her buggy-bound baby.
“I’m worried about it. When it’s dark it’s hard to come out,” said Phillip, who spends three hours a day on city streets.
The worst problems are with unoccupied property owned by city agencies other than Sanitation, said Craig Hammerman, of Brooklyn’s Community Board 6. A vacant lot at the corner of Smith and 5th streets in Carroll Gardens, owned by the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, never gets sanded or salted, he said.
“It’s just like a skating rink trying to get through there,” he said. “Sanitation won’t write a ticket against another city agency.”
A DCAS spokesman said the agency would inspect the property.
A Parks Department spokeswoman did not deny the problem.
“Our priority is the most highly trafficked areas. The cold weather has been a challenge,” said Megan Sheekey.
Mother Nature hasn’t been kind to the Sanitation Department, pointed out spokeswoman Kathy Dawkins. Low temperatures have kept the snow stubbornly on the ground, and melted snow re-freezes every night, she said.
“If people wish to inform about snow and ice conditions on sidewalks, they should dial 311,” she said, adding that dangerous conditions in front of other city agencies are not the responsibility of Sanitation.
Cold Facts
The city has been handing out tickets to property owners for failing to clear their sidewalks of ice at a faster pace this winter than last.
Tickets issued since Monday: 4,000
Tickets issued all of last winter: 9,000