AIRPORT COURTHOUSE Rogue tow companies are finding Santa Monica a tougher place to do business in the wake of tougher laws that went into effect with the new year.
The Santa Monica City Attorney’s Office on Tuesday secured a plea agreement from a local towing company after an undercover investigation found it to be operating illegally, city officials said.
Classic Towing, also known as Hook It Up Tow, and its owners Jesse and Blanca Lopez were being charged with attempted extortion, towing a vehicle without written authorization and operating without a business license.
The City Attorney’s Office also filed criminal charges against Competition Tow Service. The company and its owner, Peter Boktor, have been charged with a series of violations, including refusing to accept payment by credit card and charging an excessive rate, as well as one misdemeanor for taking a vehicle without the consent of the owner.
Boktor maintains that a former driver for Competition “pocketed some money,” but that the company did nothing wrong.
The case is in the pre-trial phase, according to Gary Rhoades, the attorney handling the cases for City Hall.
The criminal filing and plea agreement are the result of heightened collaboration between several law enforcement agencies throughout the county, along with various departments in City Hall and the Better Business Bureau.
Competition Tow Service is the third towing business prosecuted by the City Attorney’s Office in recent months. The prosecutions, along with new collaboration amongst law enforcement agencies, are part of the City Attorney’s Office Consumer Protection Unit’s continuing efforts to curb illegal towing.
As part of the plea agreement with Classic, the owners agreed to permanently shut down their business and pay $5,000 in fines — $2,500 for restitution of victims, and another $2,500 to the city’s Consumer Protection Fund.
City Hall had been pursuing Classic and its owners for several years through multiple prosecutions and administrative actions, said Rhoades.
In another case, settled in December of last year, Williams Tow & Impound and its owner, William Amaya, pleaded no contest to charges of towing vehicles without the written authorization of the property owner and refusing to accept credit card payments.
The terms of the agreement with Amaya included not performing towing in Santa Monica, a fine of $1,000, payment of $1,000 to the Consumer Protection Fund, with reimbursement of the victims, probation for one year and training employees of current towing laws.
Under tougher laws that went into effect Jan. 1, most of the towing crimes that used to be infractions are now misdemeanors, including towing a vehicle after the owner returns to the vehicle; towing a vehicle before a one-hour grace period expires; and charging rates in excess of those approved by the California Highway Patrol.
“Probation terms that tightly control towing practices and include training of drivers and dispatchers should go a long way in improving Williams Tow’s compliance,” Rhoades said.
In comparing the results in the Classic Towing case, Rhoades added, “Seeking the closure of a towing outfit is our very last resort, but if an owner sees the hook on the back of his truck as a license to steal, then he will have to be shut down.”
Rhoades said that Santa Monica Police Officer Mike Rosenberg first detected the patterns of unlawful towing practices after seeing there were an unusually high number of complaints and allegations against the three companies — Competition, Classic and Williams Tow.
Once the city prosecutors started filing charges, various law enforcement agencies including the SMPD, Los Angeles Police Department and California Highway Patrol made investigating these companies a priority, Rhoades said.
In the Classic case, City Hall got an early court order barring the company from doing any towing in Santa Monica pending trial. But in what Rhoades described as a first, the Consumer Protection Unit’s specialist, Paula Rockenstein, conducted an undercover test and found that Classic was violating the court order and operating without a business license. New criminal counts based on the violations were filed.
Rhoades urged anyone who believes they are victims of illegal tows to contact the City Attorney’s Office at (310) 458-8336.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 31, 2007. Read the original PDF.