WINSTED — No matter how much it snows, Housing Inspector Steve Williams said property owners must clear off their sidewalks.In early February, after winter storm Nemo hit, Williams noticed several sidewalks in town which were not cleared of snow.Williams said a town ordinance requires residents to clean snow off of their sidewalk within 24 hours of a snowstorm.However, Williams said he did allow property owners more time to clean up after the blizzard dumped around 3 feet of snow across the region.“I totally understand how hard it is to have a sidewalk cleared after a storm like this hits,” Williams said. “Part of it has to do with the fact no one knows what to do with the snow. If there is so much with it, you just can’t throw it back in the road.”After the blizzard, most property owners around town town piled the snow on the sides of their buildings, or in many cases on their front lawns.Williams said he did receive a few complaints of property owners not taking care of their sidewalks at all.“When I receive complaints, I go out to look at the sidewalks in question and make some notes to send out a warning to the property owner,” he said. “If I receive a repeat complaint after the initial one, the Police Department takes care of it from there. The department will take whatever enforcement action to get residents to comply. Usually an officer will issue a $100 fine, same as a traffic ticket.”One property which had trouble getting snow off of their sidewalk after the blizzard was the Beardsley and Memorial Library, which has a sidewalk on the side of their building facing Route 44.Library Business Manager Chris Moscarillo said the library had to wait three days after the blizzard to clear the sidewalk with a backhoe.“Our contractors, B&D Landscaping, needed to coordinate with the state and town in order to get the clearance to use the backhoe,” Moscarillo said. “We also had to use large dump trucks to get the snow out of here. It was too dangerous for our contractor to get in the middle of the highway without town and state Department of Transportation support. I don’t think it was unreasonable for them to take a few days to do this.”Williams said while snowstorms in the winter can be very tough to shovel out from, he just asks property owners to do the best they can to clean off the sidewalks.“Do the best you can to get the sidewalks cleaned up to make it safe for all pedestrians to get around, that’s the most important thing,” Williams said.
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Greg Fricke and James Boehmer, co-owners of Peggy Mercury in Kent, recently launched their first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts.”
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Fricke and Boehmer are not there to stock their shelves with the same products customers find at standard makeup retailers. They’re there to help customers find what works for them. That usually means asking customers about themselves and learning about their beauty habits, skin, style and the way they like to present themselves. Fricke and Boehmer believe it’s their job to help customers bring out the qualities that suit them and determine what works best for their look.
So much of the Peggy Mercury world is about emboldening people to become more creative, and possibly bolder, versions of themselves. Some of this comes through the store’s creative collaborations with artists, designers and stylists.
It’s part of an ethos that encourages them and their friends to use the shop as a kind of laboratory, trying out new creative experiments without knowing how they might turn out. Whether in fashion, painting, fiber arts or photography, the projects almost always turn out marvelously.
A line of sterling silver charms they sell started as a small project by their friend Nolan Percival. In the beginning, the pieces were for close friends and loved ones. But Boehmer and Fricke encouraged Percival to get a little more serious about the project and create a whole line for the store. Today, it’s one of their top-selling collections.
Classic styles, bold colors, and creative concerts make up the “Imaginary Concerts” line at Peggy Mercury.Provided
“Imaginary Concerts” has the duo taking their own advice.
The project started as a way for Boehmer to connect with his mother, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Taking old concert shirts from his own collection, Boehmer and his mother began cutting out the graphics with the idea that they would make a quilt together. Unfortunately, she died before they could complete the project in 2025. The pieces, which were ready for production, were put on the back burner as Boehmer and Fricke dealt with their loss and the whirlwind of projects that never seemed to cease at Peggy Mercury.
But the harsh winter of 2026 presented an opportunity to take some time and focus on themselves. Part of that meant revisiting and redefining the concert T-shirt project. This time, instead of looking to the warmth and comfort of a quilt, they turned to another passion — fashion.
Taking a page from their own book, they wanted to create something that felt comfortable to them. They took two disparate loves — one rooted in simple preppy style, with clean lines and classic silhouettes, and the other in the nitty gritty worlds of punk rock and pop — and blended them together to create something entirely new. Pulling from the staples of vintage Brooks Brothers and Charvet collections, they applied the graphic elements with bold stitching reminiscent of punk jackets of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but with a much more sophisticated air.
But the remixing isn’t just the pairing of prep and punk. The pieces are not canon. They take liberties with the realities of concert tours, combining one band’s dates with another band’s logos, mixing them all up until the reality is lost and imagination is the only truth.
Shirts from Peggy Mercury’s first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts,” hang on display.Provided
Adding to the mix is an element of perpetual creativity. Art can be messy, both figuratively and literally, and many of Fricke and Boehmer’s artist friends carry evidence of their work on them at all times. As a nod to these tireless creatives, the duo added haphazard splashes of bright color, giving the line an even more distinctive feel.
For them, “Imaginary Concerts” passes the “Peggy Test.” The mythical Peggy Mercury is a fictional figurehead for the company, a character who thrives on creativity and change. The name, much like the clothing line, is a mixture of interests: Mercury is a planet, a deity and an elusive, transformative element, while Peggy is the wonderfully stylish and boundary-pushing Peggy Guggenheim.
Everything Fricke and Boehmer put in their store has to pass this test: Would Peggy Mercury approve? For their first collection, the answer is a resounding yes.
Peggy Mercury is at 9 Maple St., Unit 2, Kent.
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