Somewhere between “See something, say something,” and “Don’t be a snitch” lies the Hamilton resident’s dilemma of how to handle the snow flakes, those homeowners who ice out their neighbors by shirking their responsibility to remove snow from their sidewalks.
The storm that hit Jan. 25 dumped 7.5 inches of snow on Hamilton, and the freezing temperatures that followed made sure it didn’t disappear quickly. When the snow stopped, most Hamiltonians cleared their sidewalks and driveways, doing it themselves, getting help from a kind-hearted neighbor, or paying someone.
But over the next few days, I noticed that many residents, including an outsized percentage of corner property owners, had not cleared their sidewalks. As time went on, their neglect became more egregious, forcing me and many other pedestrians—including kids going to and from school—into dangerous, slippery streets.
I don’t know which is worse, people who make no attempt at all, or the ones who clear their driveways while ignoring their sidewalks. Driveway-only shovelers tend to have trucks that can handle the snow easily, and it seems that in their minds, as long as they can get their vehicle out to the street, their job is done.
It’s an extreme example of self-centeredness to assume that just because you don’t ever walk anywhere, no one else does, or that because you could handle walking on unshoveled sidewalks, everyone can and should. I don’t keep count of how many people walk past my house every day, but it’s not zero, and the ages and physical capabilities of these pedestrians vary greatly.
My suspicion is that a lot of homeowners don’t bother shoveling because sometimes the snowfall melts in a day or two. But after almost two weeks of circuitous dogwalking and several near-wipeouts around snow-blocked sidewalks, I decided to investigate further.
Hamilton Township Ordinance 435, titled Snow and Ice Removal, states that homeowners need to “remove all snow and ice from the sidewalks [..] within 12 daylight hours” after snowfall. The violation and penalties section says that anyone who doesn’t comply will be fined $10, plus $10 per day for every day the violation continues. (Multifamily housing faces steeper fines.)
Ordinance 435 dates back to 1994, and while amendments have been made to other sections of the code in 2004 and 2013, the snow removal section hasn’t been updated in all that time.
Hamstat’s online service request page logs incoming complaints, their responses, and the status of the issue in question. The storm spurred a blizzard of complaints about the township’s snow plowing; some read like justified grievances, others more like the trivial—and often amusing—griping of malcontents.
To be clear, I’m not addressing snowplowing issues—only homeowners with uncleared sidewalks. On Hamstat, general descriptions of problem houses (the sidewalk at the corner of a particular intersection, for example), didn’t provide enough detail for an enforcement response, but other people had anonymously called, texted, or e-mailed to report exact addresses.
From the clustering effect I noticed in these complaints (filed under Property Maintenance Enforcement), it seemed that one or two annoyed pedestrians had filed several complaints each about houses along their daily paths.
Given the litigious world we live in, I am surprised so many homeowners would skate on thin ice by assuming the risk of pedestrians falling on uncleared sidewalks. Through surface melting and refreezing, many of those sidewalks were getting more icy and dangerous by the day, not less. It turns out that fear of being sued isn’t a great motivator when it comes to clearing sidewalks in winter, at least in New Jersey. The “worse than nature” rule that guides such lawsuits means that a homeowner can be held liable only if they make the situation worse than if they did nothing.
So if you make no attempt to clear your sidewalk and someone slips and falls, or is forced into the street and gets hit by a car, you’re not responsible. But if you try to shovel and “alter nature” in any way, you are responsible.
This is as good an example as any of a nonsensical law that carries unintended consequences. Other than lawyers, most people would agree that attempting to remove snow is better than making no attempt. The ”worse than nature” rule creates a legal environment in which every homeowner’s best interest, liability-wise, is to do nothing.
With the exception of little kids averse to school, or adults with snowshoeing or cross-country skiing hobbies, I don’t think anyone wants to live in a town where the sidewalks are perpetually blocked with snow. Municipalities enforcing local codes are effectively our last line of defense.
By Feb. 6, several municipal violations had been issued in Hamilton. The mayor’s office informed me that Hamilton Township responds to specific snow removal complaints by residents, and that when responding—to issue a violation, for example—they might notice and visit other unshoveled houses in the area.
A zoning enforcement officer visits the property, takes photographs, and attempts to contact the homeowner. If the homeowner isn’t available, a door hanger with instructions is left, which serves as notice of a violation. A violation gives the homeowner 24 hours further to clear the sidewalks. I drove to a few nearby spots to see if the Township’s warnings had been heeded. As of Feb. 10, three of the six addresses I checked had cleared their sidewalks. By Feb. 13, another had complied, leaving two of six that did nothing.
Ordinance 435-3 says that if a homeowner doesn’t remove snow, the Department of Public Works can do it, with the cost charged to the homeowners through a tax lien. I was told by the mayor’s office that no fines had been issued in 2026, and when I inquired about tax liens or other financial penalties, I was told that “zoning officials work with property owners to become compliant within a reasonable amount of time before we fine.”
While there are merits to this charitable approach, as a responsible columnist, I had to wonder if this was just a snow job, a whitewashing of the problem in feel-good language. Circling back to the ethical dilemma I mentioned at the start of this column, no one wants to report a property that might turn out to be owned by someone physically unable to clear a sidewalk.
Also, reporting neighbors for anything—even a failure to remove ice and snow—is a slippery slope, summoning uncomfortable, fantastic images of Stasi officers with snow blowers, or the all-too-real phenomenon of Americans using the ICE Tip Line to harrass or retaliate against their neighbors, U.S. citizens or not.
But owning a home carries responsibilities to the community, and human nature is such that if the enforcement of a rule or law is lax, many people will choose not to follow it. One can be assured that if Stasi agents issued some unsuspecting Cold War-era East German a warning to shovel his sidewalk, it would get done.
In Hamilton, even if fines were issued for snow removal, they seemed unlikely to dry up any slush funds or change behavior. I was starting to worry that, in the interest of assuming the best in people and giving them multiple opportunities to do the right thing, Hamilton Township might have crossed into “sucker” territory, giving people the benefit of the doubt even when it’s doubtful they deserve the benefit.
A message from the mayor’s office, following up on the two delinquent properties, informed me that one homeowner had cleared the sidewalk, and the other was being issued a summons to appear in court, where a judge will decide the next step: remediation or fines.
Depending on your perspective, that action might be too little, too late; unduly harsh; or a Goldilocks-style, just-right approach to enforcement. Personally, I think it’s time to raise the stakes with steeper fines, stricter enforcement, and more societal outcry.
If another big snowstorm happened tomorrow, followed by the same freezing temperatures, I think most of the same culprits would give pedestrians the cold shoulder once again. Unfortunately, with a town as big as Hamilton, it’s up to residents to note problem addresses and report them. As this last snowstorm (and hopefully, this column) has shown, the matter won’t be solved with a flurry of snow puns, or by sticking our heads in the snow and hoping our problems melt away.
Peter Dabbene will be a featured reader in the High Mountain Meadow Poetry Series at the Wayne Public Library on Sunday, March 8 at 2 p.m. His website is peterdabbene.com, and previous Hamilton Post columns can be read at communitynews.org. His poetry/photo book “The Lotus Eater (and Other Poems)” is available through Amazon for $20 (print) or $10 (ebook).
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