Back in February, I, as the landlord, got a failure to remove snow ticket for my rental – the supper club house – that I’m morphing into Dinner at DebS.
The court date was today. My renter Stephen, who does the shoveling, came along. We actually had kind of a good time; Stephen, who’s been a bartender at a hotel, seeing faces of people he’d served, and worked with, and reminiscing about Tom Leher songs, and Moose and Squirrel. I still have Poisoning Pigeons in the Park going thru my head; “my pulse will be quickening with each drop of strychnine”.
I pleaded not guilty so we could see the photo of the alleged offense. And also because we felt not guilty – we couldn’t think of any times when the snow left on the sidewalk was particularly egregious – plus, they have an Austin Mini, and they can’t even get out of the driveway unless they shovel.
So you go in, and you’re with a mass of nervous people worried about losing their licenses. You go to the judge and plead, and if it’s not guilty, then you talk to a prosecutor – these are first few years out of law school lawyers, who represent the city. We got a nice young lady, and we all commiserated about what a shitty winter it’s been. How even when there’s only been a little snow, it got really, really cold and froze. The photo showed a light cover of snow – you could see the pavement through it. Apparently, the ordinance says that if there’s that layer of snow, it must have salt or sand on it.
But here’s why I love WI – you promise to be better, and you don’t have to pay.
We apologized, and said we’d do better next year, and they hold the ticket open, and if we don’t get any more citations by March of next year – which of course we won’t because we’ll salt more next year – plus it probably just won’t be as snowy – then I don’t have to pay the $124 ticket.
Ah, Wisconsin.
It was just a bit more evenly covered than this
