As winter has brought significant snowfalls and icy pavement, Rye police have been busy issuing citations for failure to clear sidewalks and violating winter overnight parking rules.
Snow-related tickets are running ahead of last year, Public Safety Commissioner Michael Kopy told The Record. From November 2024 through March 2025, Rye PD issued 1,113 citations for snow-related violations, according to department data.
So far this winter, officers have already doled out 564 tickets, or slightly more than half the number for all last winter, including 161 for January alone.
The impacts of Winter Storm Fern are likely to boost those numbers.
The city code states the owner or renter of “any building fronting or abutting upon a sidewalk” is required to remove or “cause the snow or ice to be removed entirely” within “24 hours after the cessation of every fall of snow or formation of any ice on the sidewalk.”
With a citation, comes a fine, “not less than $50 nor more than $100.” And fines can add up: “Every day such violation is permitted to continue shall constitute a separate offense.”
Parking summonses are issued when car owners fail to follow the city’s overnight parking rules, which ban all overnight street parking (3 a.m. to 6 a.m.) between November and March, when plows are most likely to be blocked by violators.
Fines can range from $50 to $200 per offense, the greater amounts for repeat offenses.
There is, however, some enforcement flexibility. According to the city code, “the provisions of this section shall be inapplicable to snow deposited on the sidewalk by the city in the course of plowing streets.” In other words, when the plow dumps the white stuff on your sidewalk after you did all that hard shoveling, you’ll get a break.
There are more than cosmetic reasons for the regulations. More than a million Americans are estimated to injure themselves as a result of slipping on snow — injuries that can lead to everything from broken wrists to concussions. There are some 17,000 deaths annually from falls, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Those most at risk are those 65 and older — who comprise some 15 percent of the Rye population.
