Towing companies in Baltimore call it “trespass towing.” Someone parks on private property and the owner calls a tow company to take the car away. City Councilman Robert Curran says that’s gotten out of control.
He says the rules governing towing companies are too loose; they allow predatory practices and the fees towing companies can charge are too high.
He points, for example, to an incident he witnessed during early voting in 2012 in front of a Laundromat on Cold Spring Lane.
"An individual parked on the lot of this Laundromat and I was driving over to vote and I see this guy running across the street going to the tow truck; I knew instantly what it was," says Curran, who represents Northeast Baltimore.
The car was about to be towed for parking on private property. Curran says the lot was not properly marked and he told that to a towing company official.
Then there was the one he says “really broke the camel’s back.”
Three cars were towed from a shopping center parking lot because one of them was parked over the white line outlining spaces to avoid a pile of trash, forcing the next two cars to park over white lines as well.
So, now, Curran has a number of proposals to fix that. He’s sponsoring a resolution in the City Council calling on the Department of Transportation and the Board of Licenses for Towing Services to draft uniform guidelines for towing companies. And he has two bills to reduce the maximum amount towing companies and the city can charge drivers to get their cars back.
Under Curran’s proposal, the city wouldn’t be allowed to charge more than $140 to tow an illegally parked car. Private companies couldn’t charge more than $250
Private companies now can charge as much as $460, which Curran says is much higher than in other jurisdictions.
“Baltimore County is at $250,” he says. “I think Montgomery County is $100, Howard County is $125; I mean we need to be more in line with the rest of them,” Curran says.
Some in the towing industry are surprised by Curran’s proposal.
Charlie Parrish, general manager of Greenwood Towing in West Baltimore, says he know Curran “had been looking to reduce the fee some.”
“But I had never heard $250, nor did I hear that he was trying to regulate what private property owners would be able to have removed from their property. That was something new altogether,” says Parrish, who also is an official with the Towing and Recovery Professionals of Maryland, which represents towing companies.
Greenwood was the company involved in the incident at the Laundromat. Parrish says the property owner called his company and that the signs were properly posted. The vehicle was not towed. The driver paid the tow truck operator a “drop fee” to not tow the vehicle.
Parrish says the towing industry is already well regulated by the city and the state and is not out of control as Curran contends. He also opposes the resolution calling for trespass tow guidelines.
“To have someone to tell me what is important and not important for me to have removed off my property is kind of disturbing in a way,” he says.
Despite Curran’s claims, Paul Tolle, chief of the city Towing Division, says the number of complaints to the tow board has dropped in the last three years. He credits people paying attention to parking signs, tow companies working with motorists and an investigator looking into the complaints.
The department and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake have not taken a position on Curran’s proposals yet.
A hearing on one of the proposals - capping public towing fees - is scheduled for July 1.