David Smallwood is lenient about the items that pop up in his Uplands neighborhood after a snowstorm.

“I don’t have a problem with a chair, a cone or a body,” said Smallwood, president of the Uplands Community Association.

There’s always a heated debate about whether people can hold a spot after a snowstorm. Residents are getting creative in turning household items into safeguards. Sprinkled across city streets are matching Mickey Mouse kid chairs, a walker, frozen water jugs with a protruding red flag. And, of course, good old lawn chairs.

It took hours to dig out from the heavy, icy snow, and the below-freezing temperatures expected into next week mean the pack is sticking around, making those cleared spaces more precious.

In this frigid landscape, to chair, or not to chair? Tempers are hot.

Calling dibs on a spot is a “Baltimore tradition,” and not parking in a space you didn’t dig out is “a common courtesy,” Smallwood said. He added that it doesn’t make sense to put so much work into opening a spot that you can’t keep.

Baltimore officials beg to differ. “Don’t do it,” Mayor Brandon Scott said on WBAL ahead of the storm. “If I see your chair, it’s coming with me and going into the trash.”

The city’s Department of Transportation asked people to call 311 to report spot-savers and has gotten, well, salty about it on social media. When the department shared on X a list of household items — “plastic children’s kitchenettes, tiki torches” — it had confiscated from cleared spaces, angry commenters questioned whether that was a good use of workers’ time.

“Don’t leave chairs out, and we wouldn’t have to spend any time at all,” the department replied, along with a GIF of the epic staredown between music mogul Diddy and artist Elijah Connor.

Days after Maryland was pummeled with more than 8 inches of snow, parts of Baltimore were reminiscent of the gold rush. Small groups of young men canvassed neighborhoods, with shovels over their shoulders and sheisties pulled all the way up. A few other men tag-teamed a thick layer of brown, icy snow with a pickax to free a small car parked off North Avenue near the Baltimore Cemetery.

Freeing the vehicles is step one. Step two, getting a parking space back.

Unique Garrett in Shipley Hill opted out of using a chair when she once put her daughter’s toy in a spot she had to dig out.

“If we want to get technical, no one owns the parking spot,” she said. “We know that. However, someone took their time when the city didn’t.”

Like Smallwood, Garrett believes it’s a courtesy not to seize a spot you didn’t dig. But for Garrett, the president of the Shipley Hill Community Association, her concern is how long the snow will sit in areas that haven’t been shoveled — and probably won’t be. Meteorologists are tracking the potential for even more snow over the weekend.

“In our community, because it’s so many vacancies, that’s going to just sit there,” Garrett said.

There are at least 275 vacant building notices throughout the Shipley Hill neighborhood, according to CoDeMap. A multistory, abandoned brewery building on Willard Street in the neighborhood takes up an entire block.

Garrett said people need to be realistic and understand that the city can’t make it to every single street. Though she doesn’t think it should take a crisis for people to come together; Garrett wishes more people just stepped up to make it so everyone was better off after a storm.

A new volunteer initiative called Baltimore Snow Corps was created for seniors and others who might need help clearing snow and ice from sidewalks. Residents can call 311 to volunteer or to be connected with a helper.

Marty Warren doesn’t mind helping out his neighbors off Ingram Road near Morgan State University. The 72-year-old has seen iterations of chairs holding spots on his street since he moved in over 20 years ago. He offers a set of reasonable rules.

Sure, go ahead and place something the first day of the snowfall, especially in the immediate aftermath of backbreaking shoveling. But after 24 hours, people shouldn’t be harboring spots.

Storm Fern seemed to encourage people to put chairs out even before the snow fell, he said. That’s something he would never do.

Warren also doesn’t understand people who leave chairs while they are at work for 8 to 10 hours.

“Some people just don’t give a damn,” Warren said.