Scranton's sidewalk snow ordinance lives at Chapter 360 (Property Maintenance) of the Code of the City of Scranton. Every owner, tenant, occupant, lessee, property agent, or other person responsible for any property must remove all snow and ice from the abutting sidewalk within 24 hours after snowfall ceases for residential properties, or within 4 hours for businesses, and must keep a path of at least 3 feet on residential sidewalks (entire sidewalk for businesses). If precipitation ceases during hours of darkness, the clearing window begins at daybreak. Throwing, shoveling, casting, or otherwise depositing snow or ice from sidewalks or driveways into the street or public highway is expressly prohibited.
Scranton sits in northeastern Pennsylvania at the southern edge of the Pocono region and the Endless Mountains, averaging 45-55 inches of snowfall annually with regular lake-effect runoff bleed-through and frequent nor'easter events. Chapter 360 (Property Maintenance) of the Code of the City of Scranton therefore sets one of the more graduated sidewalk-clearing schemes in the Commonwealth: (1) Residential properties have 24 hours from the cessation of snow or ice falling to remove all snow and ice and to maintain a path of at least three feet on the sidewalk. (2) Commercial properties (places of business) have 4 hours from cessation to clear, and the entire sidewalk must be free of snow and ice - not just a path. (3) When precipitation ceases during hours of darkness, the time limit begins at daybreak rather than the actual moment of cessation, a sensible safety carve-out unique to Scranton's mid-block snow events. (4) It is unlawful to throw, shovel, cast, move, place, pile, deposit, or dump snow or ice removed from sidewalks, driveways, or other areas into the street or public highway - this protects the DPW Bureau of Highways' plow operations and prevents downstream drainage blockage in spring melt. The duty applies to 'every owner, tenant, occupant, lessee, property agent, or any other person who is responsible for any property within the City of Scranton,' meaning landlords cannot delegate the duty away by lease and vacant-property owners remain on the hook. The Bureau of Highways (570-348-4178) handles cartway plowing; the Bureau of Code Enforcement (570-348-4193) handles sidewalk-clearing citations. Pennsylvania sidewalk repair authority for third-class and second-class A cities is at 53 P.S. §39001 et seq., which underlies the City's authority to impose this duty on the abutting owner.
Failure to clear residential sidewalks within 24 hours (4 hours for commercial), failure to maintain the required 3-foot path, or shoveling snow into the public street is enforced by the Bureau of Code Enforcement (570-348-4193) with citation before the Magisterial District Judge under Chapter 360. The general property-maintenance penalty caps at $300 per violation, with each day a violation continues constituting a separate offense. The City retains the right to perform contractor sidewalk clearing and lien-back the direct cost to the property under the PA Municipal Claims Act (53 P.S. §7101). Pennsylvania premises-liability case law (Mertz v. Lakatos and progeny) typically allocates pedestrian slip-and-fall liability to the abutting property owner where the City has shifted the snow-clearing duty by ordinance, giving Scranton homeowners and landlords meaningful civil exposure beyond the City citation. Shoveling snow into the street can additionally be cited as obstruction under the streets chapter and creates downstream MS4 stormwater liability under PA DEP's NPDES program when meltwater carries pollutants into the Lackawanna River.
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See how Scranton's snow & sidewalk clearing rules stack up against other locations.
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