Heavy snows make it hard for people with disabilities to navigate. It is doubly hard when many businesses block their accessible (handicapped) parking spaces, curb cuts and accessible routes by dumping snow collected from other spaces in them.

For example, I have been prevented from entering a medical arts building, Chinese restaurant and bagel shop in Middletown, a physical therapy center in West Long Branch and a shopping mall in Tinton Falls.

This snow-dumping practice is both discriminatory against people with disabilities and illegal under New Jersey Permanent Statute Title 39:4-207.9 — Parking spaces for handicapped; requirement for snow removal, which mandates that businesses “shall be responsible for assuring that access to these special parking spaces and to curb cuts or other improvements designed to provide accessibility for handicapped persons is not obstructed … If snow or ice is obstructing the special parking space, curb cut or other improvement designed to provide accessibility for the handicapped, it shall be removed within 48 hours after the weather condition causing the snow or ice ceases … A person who violates this act shall be liable for a penalty of not less than $200 or more than $500.”
Carolyn Schwebel
Executive Director
Equalizers, “Advocates for
People with Disabilities”
Leonardo section of Middletown