When parking is full, towing becomes an option.

Coming back from listening to RPM and a follow up party and BBQ last night, we found the following message in our info@searchamelia inbox:

“I will be at the City Hall Monday. Sky Towing was yanking units from between private property and city property without the railroad requesting the removal and police officers stating that they were not towing units even parking in the middle of the road within 1 mile they charged 150 – 300 each and threatened a 50 year old lady that is sole supporter for a home a drive to see your festival for such a event to make your city 40,000 in a day just in towing what a scam. Price gouging even on the site it says 65.00 Your city is stealing from people that could not even afford the food at the fesitval or the gas.. we will not be coming back any time soon after we meet with you on Monday.” (I left the angry typo in the word Festival intentionally!)

The email came from Christina King and touched on a topic we all would call controversial during the best party this town has in store. It is an individual opinion we could all easily ignore in favor of not rocking the boat, but, since I believe that respect for individual sanctity is the root of all freedom, and other words about the towing situation have reached us as well, we gave Christina King her platform. We heard from a pirate (obviously) who got towed from near the tracks and it cost him $150 to get his car back.
Now if the towing company’s website says $65, than there is a legitimate question on why people get charged $150 and we will get to the bottom of that when the Annual Shrimp “madness” is over.

We are however glad to see that the parking rules are being enforced and if we could just get them to enforce the temporary one-way streets… well then  (our editor witnessed two incidents yesterday where the police could have done their “job” and traffic nightmares could have been dealt with on the spot, but the “visitors” were given the benefit).

As for the complaint’s legitimacy we will address the potential of gouging on towing expenses, but Miss King should realize that all food is being sold by local/regional non profits as fund raisers and we have absolutely no control over the cost of gasoline to get her to the Festival.
I’m sure however if her car would have been a Suzuki 4 door, that a British party guest last night spoke highly about as it only consumes 74 miles to the gallon, the cost of gas would not have been an issue for her.

We hope that the number of $40,000 in collected towing expenses per day is nothing more than a wet finger in the air assumption, because if it is not, the number would equate to somewhere between 250 to 400 cars being towed, and that…would point at a potential structural problem for the future of the Shrimp Festival or require a complete autofree zone for downtown.

Personally I think those numbers are hugely exagerrated because of the simple mathematics involved:
• the Festival yesterday was open from 8-6pm
• even if I would use the $300 per car fee and divide this over $40,000, we’re talking 133 cars having been towed;
• let’s accept that each car will take at least 30 minutes to be towed and offloaded at the towing lot, or 66 hours of towing action.
• This would mean that the Towing company would at least need 7 tow trucks in operation full time on any shrimp fest day.

I tried to verify this number on the website, but didn’t get anywhere as to how many trucks they actually have, but I’m pretty sure they don’t have a need for 7 trucks. And if I would use the $65 expense per tow as mentioned on the website, we’re talking 615 cars being towed requiring the need for 20 tow trucks!

Now you see what you make me do on ShrimpFest Sunday morning Ms. King?
I should be in bed trying not to think about the smoke around my head when getting up and quietly getting ready for the last day of this year’s Shrimp Festival. Instead my brain tries to wrap itself around the impossible mathematics while being presented with fabricated numbers.

We will find out if gouging of towing expenses came into play, but  for the rest of your statement, you’re on your own. I’m going back to bed, preparing for this afternoon’s Swinging Medaillons concert.