A nonposted ordinance limits parking to 72 consecutive hours on city streets. However, not many people know of the law, leaving them with their cars towed and subject to hundreds of dollars in fees.
By Melonie Magruder / Special to The Malibu Times
When Pepperdine University graduate student Rachel Flaten parked her Honda Accord on Pacific Coast Highway for a month while on vacation to give her neighbors an extra parking space, she learned that no good deed goes unpunished.
When she returned from visiting her parents, she discovered her car had been impounded for violation of a 72-hour “no standing” restriction, an ordinance of Malibu municipal code.
“By the time I went to Malibu Towing to get my car, the fees for towing and storage had gone up to more than $600,” Flaten said in an interview with The Malibu Times. “By the time I got the documentation they needed to release my car, the fees were even higher. I’m a graduate student and don’t have that kind of money.”
By the first of September, Flaten’s tab to the towing company exceeded $1,000, a lien had been attached to her car and it was scheduled to be auctioned to the public.
Flaten’s experience is almost identical to that of Malibu resident Myron Ronay, who wrote a letter to the editor in July, describing how he, too, parked his car on the highway while on vacation for two weeks. Complaints by the manager of a nearby restaurant caused his vehicle to be ticketed by the Sheriff’s Department and then towed.
The towing and storage cost Ronay $370.
Neither Flaten nor Ronay had known it was a violation of Malibu Municipal Code to park more than 72 hours in one spot on the highway or on any road within Malibu.
Neither did an employee of The Malibu Times, who had parked his car on Las Flores Canyon Road, across from the newspaper’s building, for two weeks-while on vacation. He ended up paying $200 to get his car back.
Flaten was angry with Malibu Towing, the company contracted by the city to tow illegally parked cars.
“We always seem to be the bad guy,” Adail Gayhart, proprietor of Malibu Towing, said. “But we only follow vehicle code and do what the Sheriff’s Department asks us to do.”
Malibu city municipal code (adopted from the Los Angeles municipal code) is part of an abandoned vehicle ordinance, Sgt. Philip Brooks, of the Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station, said. “If it hasn’t been moved for a while, we’ll tag a vehicle and wait 72 hours before requesting a tow. And that’s not just for PCH, it’s for any city street.”
Furthermore, Brooks said, the ordinance applies to vehicles parked off asphalt, on dirt shoulders or on vegetation.
“The whole right of way is subject,” Brooks said. “Not just the paved road.”
There are no signs posted anywhere within Malibu citing the 72-hour parking restrictions. The city of Santa Monica, which uses the same municipal code, does not have signs posted within that city either.
Adrian Garcia of parking enforcement at the Santa Monica Police Department, said, “That’s just part of the code. We tap cars as a warning that they will be towed within 72 hours as a courtesy.”
A deputy at the Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station told Ronay that it would be impossible to post signs for every traffic law in the “book”-a book that is two inches thick.
Not a racket to rake in dough
The high fees charged for towing cars and their storage is not a racket to rake in extra dough, as some towing victims say, but is legitimate, Malibu Towing says.
“People complain about the towing fees they pay, but all those rates are set by the county,” Malibu Towing Manager ‘Zip’ Updike said. “The towing fee is $116 for the first hour and $28 for daily storage,” a statement that Sgt. Brooks confirmed.
The city makes money off towed cars as well. From each towing fee, the city collects $30 (as well as the majority of any parking citation fees). During fiscal year ’07-’08, the city collected more than $215,000 in public parking lot fees and more than $212,000 in parking citation fees. The city also collected approximately $25,000 as a portion of towing fees.
Gayhart maintains that Malibu Towing, a family business of 25 years, performs a vital civic service.
“When there is an accident on PCH, it’s us that cleans it all up as quickly as possible, allowing traffic to flow again,” Gayhart said. “We’ve helped in every fire in Malibu during the past 25 years. Two years ago, we moved 25 cars off PCH to Ralph’s parking lot and then returned them-at no charge to the vehicles’ owners.”
Asked if Malibu suffers from a lack of parking spaces, Gayhart said this is not a problem most of the year.
“The summer and holidays are busier, sure, but if you look at Zuma or Surfrider on weekends, the parking lots are not full,” he said. “But people don’t want to pay the parking lot fees, so they’ll park along the shoulder of PCH. Or they’ll park in private parking lots like at Cross Creek and then those stores’ customers don’t have a place to park.”
Richard Calvin, public works superintendent for the city, said there are not any proposals that he knows of to build more public parking facilities.
Impounded cars are kept at Malibu Towing’s storage facility for about 30 days before they seek a lien on the vehicle from the Department of Motor Vehicles. If no one arrives to claim the vehicle with proper documentation and the full amount of towing and storage fees, they schedule an auction.
Flaten’s Honda was scheduled for a lien auction last week, but failed to sell.
“We post a list of vehicles to be auctioned every week,” Gayhart said. “If no one buys them, we have to pay for junking them, about 200 vehicles a year. And with what we pay for towing, storing vehicles in Malibu and eventually junking them, I’m not getting rich.”
Meanwhile, Flaten has taken to alternative transportation-a bright pink beach cruiser.
“At least it’s environmentally responsible,” Flaten said.