holding tow truck operators accountable, making sure they are maintaining
insurance. If they are going to be towing cars throughout the city and they
are fully insured and they have the proper business license with the city of
Allentown which he thinks is really important. He stated that also one thing
he noticed was their are a bunch of tow truck operators in the city of
Allentown that don't even have names on their tow trucks. He asked who
are these folks and why don't they have names? Because in his world,
you put your name on it because you always trying to promote yourself. You
want more business so not putting a name on the truck definitely isn't
something that isn't that he finds reasonable and residents should know
who is doing the towing in the city. He stated that is really important and
they also talked about unreasonable fees and obviously the $500 and the
$600 cash only is unreasonable. They must charge a reasonable fee for
towing service and storage consistent with Pennsylvania State Law. Lastly,
one thing they talked about was decoupling. If your car is on the tow truck,
let's hypothetically you are in a parking lot and your car is being hooked up
to the tow truck, but you run out and you catch them there should be a
decoupling fee that enables you to get that car back at a discount because
the tow truck operator never took your car anywhere. In this ordinance, they
have it that the tow truck operators may charge the owner a decoupling fee
of no more than one half of the towing fee. If they are going to charge
hypothetically $350 then the decoupling fee should be half of that, $175 to
get your car off the tow truck. He stated those are the four main issues that
they discussed. Again, signage, decoupling, reasonable fee, and
decoupling. He stated if you have any questions and thanked Mr. Hanlon
for all his help stating that he appreciates everything he did to help get this
to the finish line. Ultimately, this will help our residents and ultimately, they
want to hold anyone, any business, but they want to hold tow truck
operators accountable. There is a need for their service, but they are
obviously after learning and speaking with many people, there are some
predatory folks out there that are taking advantage of our residents. That is
not something they can tolerate in the city. He does believe this new
ordinance will enable Chief Roca and his team to have a better opportunity
to go after the unsavory tow truck operators. He stated to Chief Roca, he
would let him speak to that because it is his department.
Chief Charles Roca thanked Mr. Napoli for the work that he has done and
of course, Mike Hanlon as well. He stated that this was a team effort and it
is not something that just happened now. It is something that has been
going on for a while. They all can relate stories of fellow colleagues,
residents that were taken advantage by this predatory towing. He stated
that this will in fact allow signage to come up which will be clear for people
to know, hey this is going to happen and he can contact this person. It is
something that they show compassion with too to enforce accountability
and compassion. He thinks that would make the change. They are the
Police Department and gives them an understanding of when the vehicles
are towed. When a person comes out and sees their car missing, they
may think, oh, my car is stolen. They are notified by the tow company and
