As Long Island gears up for spring’s long-awaited arrival, county roads remain scarred with potholes and torn-up asphalt from one of the harshest winters in recent memory.
The repaving process has already begun, as county crews were out in full force on Sunday, March 8, halting traffic on the northbound side of the Meadowbrook Parkway in order to repair the particularly pot-marked thoroughfare. That scene will play out across the county as the snow melts to reveal treacherous conditions on roads, sidewalks and in parking lots.
In Plainview, some businesses are taking a hit at the cash register thanks to the snow. Harry Babanakios, owner of the Blue Angel Diner in the Morton Village shopping center, noted that his business was hurting due to the harsh winter that has been mercilessly dumping snow on the region.
“It’s been bad. The parking lot isn’t plowed well at all, and it’s a slushy mess out there,” he said. “There’s barely anywhere for people to park, and the nonstop snow we’ve been getting has probably hurt our business by at least 40 percent. A lot of our patrons are elderly and they can’t come out in conditions like this,” he said. “Overall, road conditions in general are pretty good…Nassau County is doing a solid job of plowing and moving the snow for motorists, but I think if they concentrated as much on sidewalks it would make it a lot better for businesses in the area.”
Todd Kirschner, co-owner of Trio Hardware, said the county has a tough job ahead of it in snow removal, as well as road repairs when the snow is finally gone.
“I think the county is doing a good job. It’s not happening as quickly as people would like it to, but they have a lot of ground to cover,” he said. “The sidewalk issue, however, is a tricky one, because the problem is, where do you put the snow? The county mounds it, but then they’d have to cut through the mounds for the sidewalks. It becomes very tricky. But the county probably isn’t ever going to go around cleaning sidewalks, anyway.”
For Town of Oyster Bay homeowners, the question of whose responsibility it is to clear snow from sidewalks on the side and behind homes just got a little easier to answer. Baron Law Firm, PLLC, based in East Northport, recently represented a homeowner in a case where a pedestrian was struck by a car while she walked on Old Country Road in Plainview in 2011. According to court papers, the pedestrian was forced to walk onto the Nassau County-owned roadway because snow and ice that had been plowed from the roadway by the county made the sidewalk impassable.
After the accident, the pedestrian sued the driver, as well as homeowners from three different residences, and Nassau County for the injuries she sustained. The county’s legal counsel argued that the county was not liable because the homeowners were ultimately responsible for clearing snow on the side and behind their homes. However, in reviewing the Town of Oyster Bay’s town code, Michael Newman, an associate at Baron Law Firm and attorney for one of the homeowners, found that the county was incorrectly presenting its case.
Newman said that Oyster Bay Town Code §205-2 explicitly states “Each owner and occupant of any house or other building … in the Town shall keep the sidewalk in front of the lot or house free from obstruction by snow or ice and icy conditions.”
“Because the code neglects to impose a duty on a homeowner to maintain the sidewalks on the side of or behind one’s home, the county owed the duty to maintain the subject sidewalk, not the homeowners,” said Newman, adding that Justice Denise Sher of the Nassau County Supreme Court ruled that the homeowners were not responsible for the pedestrian’s injuries as a matter of law. “Prior to this, it wasn’t necessarily clear who was responsible to clear the side and rear sidewalks of snow and ice. Now we know that in the Town of Oyster Bay, homeowners are only responsible for clearing snow and ice from the front of their homes.”
Newman said the town would have to rewrite its code if they want to make homeowners responsible for clearing sidewalks on the side(s) and/or rear of their homes. Jeff Baron, owner of Baron Law Firm, said that action would likely create an unreasonable burden for homeowners, particularly those who live the middle of the block with a sidewalk running behind the rear of their lot.
“That result would be absurd,” said Baron, adding that he found it ironic that Nassau County’s lawyers, who are essentially paid by its taxpaying homeowners, were trying to shift the burden of responsibility from the county to the individual homeowners.
“It was stated in black and white that it is not the homeowners’ responsibility. And to make matters worse, it was the county’s own plowing methods that allegedly caused the sidewalk obstruction in the first place,” he said.
“The county was wrongfully trying to push this burden off onto its homeowners”, said Baron. “They were attempting to abdicate their own legal responsibility to clear the sidewalks. The court found in our favor and it was, of course, no shock. Front means front.”
— With Additional Reporting By Chris Boyle
