Buffalo Bills denied exemption to Erie County's driving ban during blizzard

Local officials claim the Bills did not get preferential treatment, but team says it never asked

Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said Wednesday that Buffalo Bills players and coaches were not given an exemption from a driving ban during a weekend blizzard on the grounds that they were "not essential workers," according to a report by WIVB. The blizzard prevented the Bills from traveling home following their Christmas Eve game against the Chicago Bears, and then left them having to dig their cars out of many feet of snow upon their return on Christmas morning.

Poloncarz emphasized that the Bills were not given preferential treatment, particularly given the severity of the situation as parts of Buffalo were pounded by over five feet of snow. According to local officials, the team had reached out to the Erie County Sheriff's Office about receiving a police escort upon landing at Rochester, N.Y., but the request was denied due to officers responding to "life-threatening situations." 

"As much as they're essential for our mental health when they win, they are not essential workers," Poloncarz said. "If they got capabilities, a CDL license and want to get behind a rig, we'll take them on. If Josh (Allen) and them want to start shoveling driveways, be my guest. But the Bills are not considered essential workers."

However, Bills executive vice president and COO Ron Raccuia told the Buffalo News that wasn't the case. While Raccuia stated that the Bills tried to get their traveling party of around 150 people back to their families on Christmas as safely as possible, the team did not ask anything extra of county officials nor asked for help from state police.

"We made sure that we were not diverting any resources needed in any part of our community, whatsoever," Raccuia said. "We were in constant communication not only with them, as well as other agencies throughout Western New York, from the day we left for Chicago on Thursday until the day we returned. But we did not ask for or receive special treatment. We would not do that."

Meanwhile, a state police spokesman claimed that a trooper briefly assisted in escorting the Bills' team buses off airport property in Rochester, but discontinued the escort once the buses reached I-490. Bill Cooley, undersheriff for the Erie County Sheriff's Office, said that the Bills did not seek an escort home but did speak with the Sheriff's Office over the weekend about the weather and road conditions.

"Any miscommunication that may have occurred is specific to that," Cooley said. "The Bills didn't seek, nor were they provided with, an escort."

While the travel complications for the Bills after their 35-13 victory over the Bears presented a major inconvenience, it paled in comparison to the issues now being experienced in Erie County. Authorities say that 35 deaths have occurred in connection to the weekend blizzard, a number that surpasses the death toll from the Blizzard of 1977, long regarded as the worst in Buffalo's history.

Travel bans that had been instituted due to the extreme weather conditions have since been reduced to travel advisories throughout Erie County with the exception of the city of Buffalo, which was among the hardest-hit areas and slowest to dig out.