Fines previously issued to businesses or residents in the District over a failure to clear their sidewalks of snow will be waived.
Normally, residents and businesses have eight hours after the end of winter weather to get their sidewalks cleared. On Wednesday, Mayor Muriel Bowser suspended the enforcement of that rule and waived fines issued for violations since Sunday, WRC-TV reporter Mark Segraves posted on X.
Ms. Bowser cited the heavy and hard-to-remove ice on sidewalks as the reason for waiving the fines, according to Mr. Segraves.
Prior to the suspension of enforcement, the city was issuing $150 fines to businesses. Enforcement against residents was already on hold.
“With a lot of residents, we know they are still in the process of digging out, so we aren’t focusing on residents to give them the time to do what they have to do,” Kayanda Jones, lead solid waste inspector for the D.C. Department of Public Works, told WUSA-TV.
The D.C. Department of General Services is also trying to clear snow from city facilities.
“This stuff is like concrete at this point, ‘snow-crete’ we like to say, so it is a tedious manual process. We’ve even had to use Bobcats to clear some of our walkways and sidewalks,” DGS Director Delano Hunter told WDVM-TV.
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