The City of Norwich is reminding home and business owners to keep their sidewalks clear of snow and ice. (Photo by Sarah Genter)

NORWICH — In the wake of snowfall and ice accumulation in the last several days, the City of Norwich is reminding home and business owners to keep their sidewalks clear of snow and ice.

The city's ordinance states home and business owners must shovel snow off of sidewalks and remove any ice accumulation within 12 hours of the end of snowfall. However, City of Norwich Mayor Brian Doliver said he feels this ordinance is a bit too strict.

"The storm that hit on Saturday, it was 7 o'clock at night. By 7 o'clock Sunday morning, everybody was not compliant. So it’s something that’s extremely hard to enforce," he said. "You would have to have a team of people running around at 7 o'clock on a Sunday morning shoveling people’s sidewalks; 70, 80, 90, 100 sidewalks. For those people that haven’t gotten it done within that 12 hours, that’s just unrealistic."

To mitigate the tight timeframe, the City of Norwich now issues red courtesy tags to home and business owners who haven't gotten their sidewalks cleared within those 12 hours. The idea is to notify them that their sidewalks must be shoveled, while giving them extra time to get it done.

"A number of years ago, we did not do red tags, we just went after people and fined them or cleared their walks for them, and people were very upset. So we start out with a courtesy ticket just to say please. The red tags have encouraged many people to get their sidewalks finished," said Doliver.

"They’ll get the courtesy tag, and a few days will go by, and then we’ll generally try to contact them and if that doesn’t work we will probably end up hiring a contractor. But at this point it’s hard to find reliable contractors to go out and do sidewalks. Currently, we have three reliable contractors."

He said the ordinance also doesn't allow for flexibility in the event of things like an ice storm, for example.

"The ordinance, unfortunately, is very unbending. Like if there was a major ice storm and it were to freeze immediately, then people would have a heck of a time getting right down to their concrete," said Doliver. "I feel like if you could put down kitty litter or some sort of a traction that should be able to suffice temporarily at least, which the ordinance doesn’t allow for all that. So it really does need to be looked at."

While removing snow and ice from sidewalks is ultimately the responsibility of the homeowner, Doliver said he does hope to amend the ordinance to be more realistic for home and business owners.

He's already asked the City of Norwich Planning Commission to look at the ordinance and come up with solutions. But, he said if a recommendation is not made within a month or so, the City of Norwich Common Council will begin looking into solutions themselves.

"At the end of the day I think we all agree in the city is that what’s on the books is antiquated, it doesn’t work. We have a number of people that go to work every day and don’t have the ability to get right at the sidewalks right away," said Doliver. "So I feel like we need to, A, amend it, but then also remember that whatever we do, making sure that at the end of the day the homeowner understands that it is their responsibility, and the faster the better because we do have a number of people that walk to and from work, stores, a number of things."

City of Norwich codes and ordinances can be viewed at NorwichNewYork.net under the "Information" tab.