This one Old Town parking lot is responsible for 10 percent of unwanted tows in the city
Last July, Brodie Maslen’s 9-month pregnant girlfriend wanted some ice cream. So they made a 10 p.m. drive to Cold Stone Creamery in Old Town Fort Collins.
It was closed, so he ran into a nearby business to satisfy her craving. When he walked outside a few minutes later, a tow truck was preparing to haul away his Volkswagen Golf — with his pregnant girlfriend still in it.
Their experience is one of hundreds of tows and attempted tows at the Old Town pay-to-park lot on Laurel Street just west of College Avenue in just the past year, and one of 20-plus incidents that drew police response there.
It is a legal business practice that has inflamed growing-pain tensions, he-said-she-said arguments and escalation at a private parking lot in one of the city's busiest districts. Businesses want to be accessible to customers; people, who may not be parking by the rules, don't want their vehicles — which can be both their most valuable asset and a requirement for their day-to-day lives — towed away.
The lot is where more than 10 percent of all the private, non-consensual tows in the city happened in the prior year, according to a Coloradoan analysis of Fort Collins Police Services data.
Maslen and his girlfriend, Deirdre Lehmann, parked in the lot right next to the ice cream store that night and saw it was closed. The lot had signs specifying it was only for patrons of Cold Stone and other nearby businesses, Maslen acknowledges. But it was relatively late on a weeknight, the lot was mostly empty, and the 24-hour Alleycat Coffee House was nearby. So Maslen popped into the coffee shop to grab Lehmann a drink. She said he was in and out so quick that she didn’t finish the YouTube video she was watching.
It was enough time for a tow truck driver to drop his bed — instigating a drop fee, even if the car isn’t actually towed — and start preparing to hook up their car.
“I walked up to (the tow truck driver) and said, 'Hey, you realize there’s someone in that vehicle, right?'” Maslen recalled. “And he immediately is just like, ‘No there’s not.’”
He recalled his own emotions escalating, but confusion melted into a bit of amusement — after all, what were they going to do when they realized there was a pregnant woman in a car they were towing? But after a moment of conversation, he walked away and into his car, “a little scared because of how aggressive (the tow truck driver) was being.”
They were boxed in — “detained against our will,” as Maslen described it — and tried to leave before it escalated further. One tow company worker ended up jumping on their car while yelling and saying they were running him over, they said.
J.R. Schlegel, co-owner of Schmer’s Towing, said in an interview there was a dark tint on the car window, making it difficult to see into at night. He doubled down on the truck driver's doubts that another person was in the car. In Schlegel's telling, the incident was an almost routine dispute: Someone didn’t obey the rules of the privately owned parking lot, refused to pay the tow fee and obstructed the company from doing what it was hired to do.
That night's events are a lot like many incidents at the lot: Tensions run high, and versions of the story muddy, with one side trying to serve its customer and the other side reacting to their vehicle being taken from them.
But is it legal?
The lot is privately owned, with signage warning that almost all the spots are pay-to-park and are monitored for possible towing 24/7. Prior to the pay-to-park model, signs listed a time limit for parking and the businesses the lot was for.
One police observation from a July incident could be standard for a dozen: “Nothing criminal occurred, both sides had drastically different versions of the same story and both said the other was the aggressor, no way to independently verify.”
Just this month, a person took a hacksaw to the tow truck’s chain while it was hooked to their car, according to a Fort Collins Police Services incident report. Other folks have jumped into their car to prevent it from being towed. Last August, a driver refused to pay the drop fee — the $65 charge for not getting your car towed after the tow company starts the process of towing — and hit multiple parked cars during his escape.
"There's been some stuff that's happened over there. My drivers know not to engage people who become violent,” Schlegel said, adding, "The extremities people will go through to beat the system or be dishonest, I think that's the real story there."
People will leave dogs in their car, or other people, because they know it means they can’t be towed. More will claim they were there for just 15 minutes, even as monitors count the hours without the vehicle moving.
Drivers for Schmer’s are as likely to call the police for assistance as people who are being towed, per police records. In Maslen’s case, each party called the police and recounted different versions of the night. After almost two hours, Maslen and Lehmann were allowed to leave, with each side having been accused of being overly aggressive. Schmer’s had the option of pursuing payment as a civil matter, but it has not.
Police are limited in what they can do at the lot, unless a crime is happening. It’s private property, with proper signage warning of tows.
The state Public Utilities Commission, which regulates tow companies, has records of three complaints again Schmer’s in the past year: Two complaints, from a similar time, earned the company a warning that its tow agreement lacked some necessary information, such as maximum allowed rates for nonconsensual tows; one of the complainants was reimbursed the cost of the tow, while the other couldn’t be contacted. That person made the complaint anonymously due to “fear of (the) company,” according to PUC records. The third complaint is under investigation.
The tow itself is a civil matter and outside police purview, Fort Collins Police Services spokesperson Kate Kimble said. Police are typically called when a car is being towed as an informational matter. Records show they’ve received more than 350 calls about a tow from that lot alone in the past year.
Online reviews, as nonscientific as they are, are inconsistent. People who call them when they need a tow almost always leave ringing endorsements; people who get towed nonconsensually usually try to bring down fire and brimstone with their reviews.
For the most part, the lot runs uneventfully, Schlegel said. Thousands of people pay the meter and aren't bothered. Of those that are towed, they'll pay up, happily or otherwise, and move on with the knowledge that a $1.75 parking fee is better than potentially hundreds in towing and impound fees, Schlegel said.
Even when police do go out, their hands are somewhat tied. Maslen and Lehmann recalled the police officers being courteous while trying to navigate their dispute — and trying to keep tensions from boiling over — and eventually sending the two parties on their separate ways.
Why so strict?
The lot is more than just a money-making venture for its owner, Schlegel said. Before it was a pay lot with a kiosk for people to buy time on, it was reserved for patrons of surrounding businesses.
People would claim they were patronizing one of the allowed nearby businesses even as they were seen walking out of a neighboring one, Schlegel said.
"(Business owners) see all the cars out there and think, 'Wow, my business must be booming today,'” Schlegel said. “Then you go in and there's no one in there."
It switched to the pay system last year.
"People were using and abusing that parking lot over there, so (the lot owner) was a little fed up with the way things are working over there, and said, so I'm going to make this into a paid parking lot," Schlegel said.
Schlegel said his company tries to work with people — if they put in the wrong license plate number and can prove it, for example — and doesn’t target cars that have overstayed their time by a few minutes. But at the same time, their job isn’t to play “hall monitor” in the area and issue warnings arbitrarily; it’s to provide a service to his customer, in this case the lot’s owner.
"I don't look at that car and say, oh, it's owned by a 16-year-old, can't touch that one, just like I don't say, oh look, there's a Mercedes, they're definitely going to want to come back for that,” he said. “We focus on the people that don't pay."
The lot is the first private pay lot in the city, with more to come Schlegel said. He figures the increase in pay lots — and gripes people have with them — is a symptom of Fort Collins’ own growing pains.
"You'd expect it for somewhere like Denver, or Los Angeles, but we're growing and people just don't know how to react to it,” Schlegel said, adding, "What do you do? The property owners are customers of ours, too."
For Maslen, he said they haven’t patronized that lot again since they were almost towed. They don’t describe themselves as advocates — unlike some, they haven’t waved signs out front warning people about the lot — but still warn friends when it comes up. It’s not even the business model that bothers them; it’s the aggression and escalation.
"I'm all for them getting paid for their parking,” Maslen said. “I don't see a problem with that. But it’s the way they're enforcing it that I have a problem with."