The Snow Removal Business Is a Mess

As a blizzard threatened the Northeastern U.S. on Thursday morning, commercial landlords grappled with a problem that homeowners can relate to: Hiring someone to clear the snow is a slippery business.

There are plenty of good reasons to pay for snow removal services: to clear parking lots so employees can get to work and consumers can walk the aisles, to limit liability for slip-and-falls. Those imperatives helped snow plow services ring up $14.3 billion in U.S. sales last year, according to market researcher IBISWorld, with most of the revenue coming from clearing office, retail, and manufacturing properties.