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Kerry Fined $50 For Not Shoveling Sidewalk Outside Boston Home

Secretary of State John Kerry greets new Saudi King Salman in Riyadh on Tuesday. the city of Boston fined Kerry $50 on Thursday for failing to clear his sidewalk after this week's massive snowstorm.
Carolyn Kaster
/
AP
Secretary of State John Kerry greets new Saudi King Salman in Riyadh on Tuesday. the city of Boston fined Kerry $50 on Thursday for failing to clear his sidewalk after this week's massive snowstorm.

Secretary of State John Kerry was in Saudi Arabia this week with President Obama meeting that country's new king. So, when the massive snowstorm hit the Northeast this week, the sidewalk outside his Boston home wasn't cleared. The city, as The Boston Globe puts it, took notice.

Kerry was fined $50 on Thursday for failing to clear the sidewalk outside the Beacon Hill mansion.

The newspaper adds: "Kerry, who was en route to Boston after an overseas trip, was not in town when a massive blizzard struck New England, nor was he here for the messy cleanup at his Louisburg Square property."

Kerry's spokesman Glen Johnson said the secretary would pay the fine. "Diplomats — they're just like us," he told the newspaper.

The snow outside Kerry's home was cleared Thursday morning, Johnson said.

Boston has aggressively targeted those people, departments and agencies that didn't clear snow from their properties. Also fined, according to The Globe, were the Boston Public Library, several Boston public schools and the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Krishnadev Calamur is NPR's deputy Washington editor. In this role, he helps oversee planning of the Washington desk's news coverage. He also edits NPR's Supreme Court coverage. Previously, Calamur was an editor and staff writer at The Atlantic. This is his second stint at NPR, having previously worked on NPR's website from 2008-15. Calamur received an M.A. in journalism from the University of Missouri.