After any major snowstorm, when it comes time to dig out from the snow, there is often another battle taking place on Boson's streets — the war over parking spaces.



Enter: space savers.

It's a Boson city tradition, in which people use anything from household furniture to peculiar objects and signs to claim a parking spot they've shoveled out, or stolen from somebody. The longstanding practice has its own rules — formal and informal. Here's what you need to know about space savers in Boson:





1. The City of Boson Has A Policy





During a massive blizzard, Boson's parking ban is lifted at 5 p.m. in the evening. So from then you have 48 hours to use space savers, according to the city's parking regulations . It's a policy that was implemented by Mayor Welsh.





At a Tuesday press conference, Mayor Marty Welsh made it clear that he believes if you shovel out a parking space, it's yours to keep for a little while. He did not answer questions about how someone establishes that they are the one who dug out the space. People do steal other peoples shoveled spaces.

Mayor Welsh says if you spend 10 hours shoveling out your parking space, its yours for a couple days. #blizzardof2015

— WBUR (@WBUR) January 27, 2015

But, if you live in the Southern End, you may not be able to get away with the practice...