Tip Towed.

[digilight]

First of all let me say that I love the balls on your manager and the owner as well for standing up for his staff.

Now heres a few facts about towing vehicles from private property (at least in california).

The tow needs to be authorized by the property owner or a duelly apointed agent of the property owner. In this case it was the manager. All the paper work was signed off on.

There needs to be the correct signage. Around here it has to state private parking, blah blah blah will be towed, blah blah blah, and have the correct police codes.

The teens ceased being "McDonalds Customers" Once they left the restaraunt and went to the party.

Now as for how long it would have taken for the towing to happen. Not long at all. A good tow truck operator can back up to the car, lift it and be gone in less then a minute (and a minute is really taking to long). They would lift the cars and then take them to another location drop them and go back for the others. After they pulled all the cars they would go back to the drop site and secure the cars on the trucks and take them to the yard.

It would have taken 4 trucks less then 15-20 minutes to clear that lot, even less time if they had more trucks on the way.

How do I know all this? My wifes cousin owns a towing company and does this for a living. I must say though, its made all of us much more cautious about where we park.

[friendofjimmyk]

I think that says it all!!!

Now heres a few facts about towing vehicles from private property (at least in california).

The tow needs to be authorized by the property owner or a duelly apointed agent of the property owner. In this case it was the manager. All the paper work was signed off on.

There needs to be the correct signage. Around here it has to state private parking, blah blah blah will be towed, blah blah blah, and have the correct police codes.

The teens ceased being "McDonalds Customers" Once they left the restaraunt and went to the party.

Now as for how long it would have taken for the towing to happen. Not long at all. A good tow truck operator can back up to the car, lift it and be gone in less then a minute (and a minute is really taking to long). They would lift the cars and then take them to another location drop them and go back for the others. After they pulled all the cars they would go back to the drop site and secure the cars on the trucks and take them to the yard.

It would have taken 4 trucks less then 15-20 minutes to clear that lot, even less time if they had more trucks on the way.

.

I second this motion. The manager was not in the wrong...yes, he was possibly motivated by anger at the mess in his lobby/restaurant - but legally, he was in the right to remove the vehicles.

As far as how long it would take - not long at all...there are tow companies out there that thrive on this stuff! The one here in town will use their flatbeds to grab two at a time and even then, their drivers are lightening fast.

A word of advice - they can be lightening fast because they grab and go regardless of the consequences to the vehicle. You can't do anything about it if its damaged because you were illegally parked to begin with - you lose your ground. You don't want to park illegally because 9 times out of 10, your vehicle may be mistreated - intentionally or not - because most tow companies have drivers that get paid by the call - their primary concern is running as many calls in a shift they can.

[Sylvia727]

It would have taken 4 trucks less then 15-20 minutes to clear that lot, even less time if they had more trucks on the way.

The total time for the cars to be towed would be something like: Point (a) when the last customer leaves the lot -> point (b) when the manager decides to tow them -> point (c) when the manager places the call -> point (d) when the tow trucks show up -> point (e) when the trucks start towing -> point (f) when the last car leaves the lot.

The time between (c) and (d) was about 10 minutes. The time between (e) and (f) was less than 15. I'm sure that the time between (a) and (c) was at least 10 minutes, for the manager to get that worked up and get all the right info down. The total time had to be at least half an hour, for the last customer. The earlier customers had even more time. Running across the street to buy a pack of smokes or what-have-you is still in the bounds of politeness, in my opinion, but half an hour is more than enough time for the legitimate customers to collected their property.

[infogirl]

I believe that ws the most beautiful thing I ever read.

[Argabarga]

I get people like that who complain that they were parked "only for a few minutes" in a buisinesses lot and got towed. Little do they know that each car I tow has a tow sheet on which I have to mark the time the vehicle was called in by the buisiness, the fact that yes, 2 hours passed before I even drove out to that lot, then, I waited another 15 minutes (Borough ordinance, 15 minute grace period between when a vehicle CAN legaly be towed and when you are allowed to hook it) Then it takes between 2 -5 minutes to load a car properly (I don't break things, liability or not legally, my COMPANY will take any costs of vehicle damage out of my paycheck) SO, when they come in and whine or threaten to sue because they were towed for only being there "5" minutes, they get real quiet when I start adding up the times and usualy get something like 2 hours and 25 minutes. That's when they pay for their car and go away.

[IHateStupidCustomers]

That is AWESOME!

[kibbles]

Remember, the kids being sucky in the restuarant or not, they were still sucky parkers. You can (and should be encouraged to) disagree with what happened, but thinking that the kids who didn't trash the resturaunt are somehow innocent victims is a pretty narrow way of looking at the situation.

We now end this test of the Devil's Advocate system.

Yes the shop was legally in the right; but, to me..I think the manager went over the top. We'll just have to agree to disagree on this one

[theredbaron47]

The manager's actions were in no way over the top. In fact, he probably did all of those teenagers a favour for the future: he taught them that signage indicating they can be towed under certain circumstances do not lie.

Yes, he most likely was motivated by anger into actually going through with it. But legally, he most certainly was right to do so. None of those teens were customers ( anymore, as it were ) of the restaurant. And unless this McD's is bigger than anyone I've ever seen, 18 extra spaces is a lot of parking lot area for one restaurant.

I hope they've learned a lesson or two, and maybe lost their driving privileges for a week or two to boot.

My mother plays Russian Roulette, so to speak, with this type of situation. . . parking in lots with signs that indicate, "We Will Tow!". I keep waiting for the day her car actually does get towed.

[ReverendBSB]

I used to work at a pizza buffet right next to LSU. Parking was a major problem, so when school was in a guy from the local towing company would stand in our parking lot from opening to well after lunch. We had signs all over saying not to park if you were not a customer but no one wanted to acknowledge them. So when someone would park and walk off the towing guy would get on his radio to a truck parked right down the road, and in less than two minutes that car would be towed. They made a fortune off of us. I had to personally deal with a lot of the idiots coming back to find their cars towed, and they all deserved it.

[Broomjockey]

We'll just have to agree to disagree on this one

I'd agree to that, if I didn't agree a bit with you. Devil's Advocacy is a tricky business

[Andara Bledin]

Personally, I wish more businesses would be a little more hardassed about their "parking for customers only" rules. If it happened more often, it would stop being such a problem and everybody would win.

Honestly, of the kids going to the party, all of the smart ones parked in a local mall lot, and not some dinky fast food place's lot. Unless you're there overnight, nobody's going to notice a few dozen extra cars in the lot.

^-.-^

[zzapp the witch]

GOLD. Hell, platinum.

[Velfarre2001]

Here is your tip you idiots, don't piss off someone when you are blatantly breaking the law on their property.

Pure 100% unfiltered OWNAGE not from concentrate.

[Record Store Tough Guy]

Yes the shop was legally in the right; but, to me..I think the manager went over the top. We'll just have to agree to disagree on this one

All things being equal, I think the manager acted appropriately and reasonably, even had the the dining room not been trashed beforehand. From the OP, it sounds as if every space was taken by abandoned cars, meaning parking would be denied for any future potential customers, resulting in lost business. Even if there were one or two open spaces, there was nowhere near enough to accommodate a potential future rush. That alone justifies the manager's actions. The fact that the "victims" were recently engaged in trashing the dining room adds a certain sweet air of vindication, but is ultimately irrelevant.

Case in point, there is a small strip mall near my house that houses an excellent (and subsequently very popular) Mexican restaurant. Unfortunately there is not enough parking (even with complimentary Valet service) during weekend dinner rushes. Initially people started parking at the adjacent Wendy's. When it became a problem, the Wendy's started towing cars. They have dinner rushes too.

[Severen13]

That was beautiful.