Loophole in law has tow biz booming

Marisa O’Neil

A loophole in the law allows tow-truck drivers to take a car from a

bank parking lot while its owner is at the ATM, and some towing

companies are taking advantage.

Costa Mesa resident Richard Cohen bought something at a store and

left his car there while going someplace else. His car was towed.

“It’s a racket,” Cohen said. “They charge outrageous amounts of

money.”

Some say tow-truck companies are bending the law for a quick buck,

towing cars left for only a few minutes on private properties. What

the companies are doing sometimes violates California law, Orange

County Deputy Dist. Atty. Lesley Young said. But because a federal

ruling prevents states from enforcing that law, she added, there is

little that local cities and police departments can do to help people

who say their cars were unfairly towed.

“These towing companies are victimizing the citizens of Orange

County,” Young said. “People, we feel, are not being given fair

warning that they’re going to be towed.”

Property owners who want to keep their parking spaces open for

customers often forge contracts with local towing companies to patrol

their lots, Young said. But, she added, some towing companies are

taking the next step, lying in wait for people to park their car and

walk across the street -- even if it’s just to get a newspaper and

come back to patronize the business.

“We think there’s predatory towing going on [in the city],”

Newport Beach Police Sgt. Steve Shulman said. “In some cases,

tow-truck drivers will watch a person park and walk away, then they

come in and hook [the car] up.”

Property owners must give drivers a one-hour grace period and

specify to tow-truck drivers which cars they want towed, according to

the California Vehicle Code. More often than not, that isn’t done,

Young said.

The problem is that the same federal legislation that deregulated

the airline industry 10 years ago also covers tow-truck drivers. That

means the state cannot legislate them except for safety issues, and

there are no laws regulating the towing industry at the federal

level, leaving them unregulated, Young said.

Some towing companies are taking advantage of the loophole to tow

cars and charge people hundreds of dollars to get them back, she

said. Many people have called the Costa Mesa and Newport Beach police

departments only to find that law enforcement’s hands are tied.

“It’s very frustrating, because I want to help them,” Costa Mesa

Police Sgt. Rich Allum said. “This is a criminal violation, but I

can’t enforce it because I have a federal court decision that says I

can’t.”

Less-than-scrupulous towing companies give the industry a bad

name, said Chris Yagerlener, a manager at G & W Towing, which has

contracts with the Costa Mesa and Newport Beach police departments.

There is a need for towing cars, he said, but not for going into lots

and towing cars in the middle of the night.

One area notorious for aggressive towing is the corner of Harbor

Boulevard and Wilson Street, Yagerlener said. The lots on either side

of Wilson are hot spots for such activity, he said.

The Orange County district attorney’s office is investigating ways

to take control of the practice of so-called predatory towing.

One case in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that states

can’t enforce the state vehicle code, as it applies to tow trucks.

The court will hear a case that aims to reverse that decision

sometime next year.

For now, Allum said, Costa Mesa Police are doing what they can to

help people document the tow if they want to pursue it in

small-claims court. He refers them to the part of the state vehicle

code that defines what their rights are.

If the court changes its decision, police can enforce the law or

punish unscrupulous towing companies, Allum said.

“They’re doing it until somebody puts a stop to it,” Yagerlener

said. “Until then, it’s a crazy world out there, towing-wise.”

* MARISA O’NEIL covers public safety and courts. She may be

reached at (714) 966-4618.