Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, August 26, 1994 TAG: 9408270003
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Late at night, though, for those driving around a bustling downtown searching for a place to park, his may be the most feared.
Tek Tow owner Peyton Whited Jr. says his business fills a niche. It's the only service in Blacksburg that specializes in towing illegally parked cars by contracting with apartment complexes and businesses.
Whited, a former Virginia Tech student, bought out AuTow Inc. in April, taking over a service which many in Blacksburg considered overly aggressive in its dealings.
Whited thinks he can do the job better. With a part-time staff of seven college students, a tandem of tow trucks and a fenced-in lot on the south side of town, he patrols about a dozen apartment complexes and as many businesses looking for cars that sit where they're not supposed to.
He says his service is "absolutely" needed.
"Go downtown and try to find a place to park at lunchtime," he says. "Blacksburg was designed years ago as a one-horse town. It wasn't designed to handle 27,000 students.
"And therefore you have the parking problem."
On a given day, Whited's workers tow eight to 10 illegally parked cars. Tek Tow also provides regular request towing and assists people locked out of their cars, but Whited estimates that nearly two-thirds of his business comes from impoundments.
He charges $57 plus $10 a day storage when he tows an illegally parked vehicle, compared to $30 plus mileage for a request tow. Businesses and apartment complexes pay him a one-time fee to tow cars from their lots.
Blacksburg Baptist Church, with a spacious parking lot on the periphery of the town's bar scene, contracts with Tek Tow for 24-hour tow-away service.
Whited says the church members were frustrated at the garbage continually left behind by people who parked their cars in the lot. "They were paying someone to clean up their parking lot on a daily basis," he says.
The Rev. Ray Allen, the church's pastor, says the impetus to tow cars is even more basic.
"I really think that people should respect other people's property," Allen says. "People feel this is a public lot, and it's not a public lot." The bigger issue, he maintains, is that the town has not sufficiently addressed its overall parking problem.
The church holds classes, dinners and services almost every night, and it's not fair to ask legitimate church patrons with identification stickers to have to search for parking spaces because bar-hoppers and restaurant-goers have decided to take advantage of the space, he says.
He's pretty unsympathetic when people complain to him. "The main complaint is, 'You should've known it was my car,'" he says. "We are spiritual folks, but we can't divine. ... We don't have that gift."
Whited says he tries to prepare those he contracts with for the "guff" they sometimes get. For his part, he's willing to listen if a towing victim wants to argue with him. "You just have to have unbelievable patience in this business," he says. "We are literally under the microscope."
Whited's been cussed, and he's had to call in the police to defuse situations - though no one's taken a swing at him yet. He says he's meticulous when it comes to doing a job, to the point of photographing any questionable tow. He admits that sometimes cars are wrongly towed, but insists it's usually an oversight, such as the tow-truck driver not noticing a parking decal.
When Blacksburg's Police Department hears complaints from towing victims, it generally forwards them to the State Corporation Commission. A spokesman with the SCC said the agency received hundreds of complaints over the years about AuTow. It has received a handful regarding Tek Tow.
Sherry Murphy's complaint didn't reach the SCC, but nevertheless, she wasn't pleased with Tek Tow's tactics earlier this summer. Murphy, who lives at Sturbridge Square apartments, came out to the parking lot as a Tek Tow truck pulled up behind her pickup truck, preparing to haul it away.
Though Murphy had a parking pass, she'd forgotten to hang it from her rear-view mirror. The tow-truck driver said he'd still have to charge her for a partial tow - $25 - even though he hadn't actually hooked up his rig to her truck, she said.
She didn't have the cash, and he wouldn't accept a check, but said he'd take the television set or VCR until she could pay, Murphy said.
(In explanation, Whited says offering to take a piece of property as temporary collateral is a "tasteful" alternative to demanding cash money or towing a vehicle. "We've taken golf clubs, or a television or a VCR," he says. "It's worked very successfully.")
A friend finally loaned Murphy the money and she paid the fee. She later checked with Blacksburg Police Chief Bill Brown to see if she had been treated fairly, and decided not to try to get her money back. "They were in the right," she said. "It just didn't feel like they were."
Perhaps it's that seemingly ethical ambiguity that prompted Whited to introduce himself at a Town Council meeting a few months ago, where he tried to allay any fears town leaders might have about how he runs his business.
While council members seemed generally supportive then, some perked their ears up Tuesday when a resident complained about towing. After that night's meeting, Councilman Al Leighton spoke with Town Attorney Richard Kaufman about reintroducing discussion of an ordinance that would require that all commercial parking spaces where towing is enforced be marked with a "conspicuous sign."
Council considered the ordinance last year when residents complained that AuTow removed their cars from lots that weren't clearly marked as tow zones. But after much discussion and opposition from some downtown businesses, the council finally tabled the ordinance.
Does Whited ever feel guilty about his work? Whited muses and begins nodding yes, then stops and clarifies himself. "Not guilt exactly," he says. "Some of your personal caring slips in." Whited says he might look across the counter at someone, and say to himself, "Man, I wouldn't want to be in his shoes."
Perhaps that comes from experience on the other side, says Whited, who had his vehicle towed while in Austin, Texas, around 1985. "They towed my van with my dog in it," he says.
But his is a limited sympathy. "I've been very careful to research the legality and the codes," he says. "We're quick, we're careful, we're well-insured."
And be warned, Tech students. The summer was a "very testing" time, Whited says. Without the students in town, his business was cut in half. Now, he's looking forward to plenty more work.
"We stood out on [U.S.] 460 and blew them kisses," he said of the returning students. By next week, "we'll be towing full blast."
by CNB