By: Reagan Allen
Predatory towing is a problem in Chapel Hill. Barnes Towing, a local tow company, has scores of complaints…. including accusations of specifically targeting young women. Chapel Hill resident Jimmy Jackson said he’s seen this in action.
Jackson: “I think they do target girls over guys. Some of the guys they just about have to fight. They don’t have to fight no girls.”
Jackson sits at the McDonalds on Franklin Street every day and drinks coffee. He and his friends have been doing this for the past 10-15 years and have witnessed countless cars towed from the parking lot. He estimates that about 90% of the cars he’s seen towed are owned by young girls.
Jackson: “I just think Barnes is wrong. If these girls park here, and anybody that parked here and gets back to their car before Barnes tow them they shouldn’t make them pay.”
Jackson: “I just feel so sad for them. The girls here are going to school they don’t know.”
UNC sophomore, Bethany Pryor, recently had a run in with the company after her car was towed from the Warehouse apartment parking lot while she was visiting a friend. Pryor said she went to pick up her car from the Barnes lot behind a chain fence at 1:00 a.m. because someone from the company told her it would be cheaper to get it then.
Pryor: “We get here, and the guy is saying it’s $240 And so we were like Okay, so we hand him the card. He goes actually no, it’s $345. We’re like, why did it change? He said it just switched and I was like, okay, and then we hand on the card and he’s like we only take cash.”
According to a Chapel Hill ordinance from 2014, “Towing companies have to accept payment by cash, debit card, and at least two major credit cards at no extra cost to the owners of towed vehicles.”
The man working at Barnes towing then suggested Pryor and her friend go to the ATM at a strip mall down the road Pryor refused and came back the next morning with cash.
Pryor: “It was just a really frustrating situation. And so my mom called The Day After when I got back home and they refused to give her information. They called me a liar. They told my mom that that never happened.”
Pryor: “I feel like it just would have been treated differently – the situation would have been – if it was a man.” (9.01)
Pryor’s mom, Kim, is unhappy about how her daughter was treated and feels she was unfairly targeted and taken advantage of.
Kim Pryor: “It’s just not safe. I don’t feel like it’s a safe situation to have a teenage girl go meet somebody in a gravel chain linked parking lot. It’s not even a well-lit business. I just feel like they should have a location they tow to that is a safer spot.” (5.15)
Mayor of Carrboro, Damon Seils, recognized the ongoing problem regarding predatory towing. He said the town is doing everything it can to help people avoid this problem.
Seils: “We can require private property owners, for example, to have really good signage on their property that makes it clear to their visitors what the towing rules are. There are some things that we just don’t have control over like the fees that towing companies charge, that kind of thing. So, we try to focus on educating folks about where parking is available, and then what the rules are, when they’re on private property.”
Seils said the power the town has to enforce towing regulations is limited.
Seils: “The town did have much stricter regulations, around towing, we were able to cap fees, for example, we were able to require towing companies to accept payment by cash or by major credit cards or debit cards. There was a case several years ago that went all the way up to the North Carolina Supreme Court. That undid our authority, and really all local governments throughout North Carolina.”
Barnes towing company has refused to comment.
I’m Reagan Allen reporting.
