Gainesville City Commission discusses eliminating vehicle immobilization and roam towing but defers decision

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – During the afternoon session of the April 16 meeting, Gainesville City Commissioners proposed changes to the City’s towing ordinance, with several Commissioners indicating that they favored completely eliminating vehicle immobilization and roam towing; however, they deferred a decision to a future meeting.

Interim City Manager Andrew Persons introduced the agenda item by emphasizing that the City Commission would not be passing an ordinance at that meeting: “This is a discussion to get direction from the Commission on potential ordinance changes or changes to policy related to towing and immobilization.” He said the City has been meeting with some of the towing operators, and he expects those meetings to continue.

Towing

Gainesville Police Department Major Jaime Kurnick gave a lengthy presentation on the current ordinance (click here to see the full presentation) and various issues surrounding it. She also defined several terms:

• Trespass towing: removal of a vehicle without the consent of the owner (includes both call-in and roam towing);
• Call-in towing: trespass towing conducted at the specific request of the property owner;
• Roam towing: trespass towing conducted without a specific request at the time of the tow, conducted under a pre-existing agreement to monitor and enforce parking.

Kurnick provided several options:

• Option 1: Eliminate roam towing;
• Option 2 (also referred to as the “Tallahassee option”): Limit roam towing to multi-family residential properties, restricted to the hours between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m.;
• Option 3: Keep roam towing but update the ordinance.

Recommended changes to the current ordinance included adjusting “normal business hours” to 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Saturday; making permits valid for two years; prohibiting anyone convicted of a felony sexual offense from driving a tow truck; adding additional accountability for towing companies; establishing photo documentation standards; specifying that the City, motor vehicle dealerships, and repair facilities are exempt from the ordinance; clarifying that payment can be in any denomination of U.S. currency and change must be provided; and prohibiting the photographing of driver’s licenses and payment cards.

Immobilization

Kurnick said the City could eliminate immobilization (with devices such as boots) or update the ordinance to promote consistency between the towing and immobilization provisions in the ordinance and ensure that the ordinance reflects current practices. She said the downside of immobilization is that it doesn’t free up a parking space, but immobilization does not damage vehicles, and the vehicle is still there when an owner returns. 

Staff recommended updating “normal business hours” as in the towing section; strengthening and standardizing immobilization agreements while defining property owner responsibilities and ensuring oversight; making permits valid for two years; prohibiting anyone convicted of a felony sexual offense from immobilizing a vehicle; clarifying written notice requirements, requiring that a vehicle be released one hour from the request, establishing photo documentation standards for a violation, and requiring that the immobilization company be able to collect payment at the vehicle location; requiring the immobilization company to accept any U.S. currency and provide change; prohibiting the photographing of driver’s licenses and payment cards; and adding a violation for failing to comply with the regulations.

Feedback from a towing company

Mayor Harvey Ward gave towing company representatives five minutes each to provide comment, and Kevin Whitesides from Superior Towing said the one-hour requirement to remove a boot was unrealistic in football game traffic and the City typically takes one to three hours to remove immobilization devices. His second concern was a requirement that any caller trying to get a device removed cannot be placed on hold “for one second… When you call 911 for non-emergency, [the wait is] six minutes, but we can’t have anybody on hold for one second. It’s impossible, unreasonable, can’t be done.”

Whitesides also objected to a provision that would revoke a company’s permit if the company gets three citations in a year, because a disgruntled tow truck driver could commit three violations in 30 minutes without the company’s knowledge. He said there should be no special treatment for dealerships, and he thought the word “cash” should be removed because he didn’t think companies should have to accept coins, “something that the City itself refuses to accept.” Whitesides was the only towing company representative to speak.

Public comment

During public comment, one man supported getting rid of roam towing and complained about the paid parking system downtown. He said, “We need people to come from Ocala, Lake City, all over the state, to enjoy what Gainesville has to offer without having to worry about their car being towed.”

Bobby Mermer, Coordinator of the Alachua County Labor Coalition, also said roam towing should be banned, and immobilization should either be banned or have a maximum rate set. He said, “Hearing from more affected people in the town who have been immobilized or booted lately, it appears that booting is getting out of control, so I would urge you to straight-out ban immobilization, as well.”

Kurnick said the City responds to a request to remove a boot within 30 minutes, “not one to three hours.” She added that the City doesn’t boot many vehicles: “It’s only when someone has so many violations.” She said the City issued one citation to tow companies in 2023, one in 2024, and zero in 2025 because the City works with the tow companies to resolve complaints.

Interim City Manager Andrew Persons added that the City “definitely still accepts all forms of cash payment.”

Commissioner Casey Willits clarified with Kurnick that the City does not currently set a maximum rate for immobilization because they removed that limit last fall, thinking they would revise the ordinance more quickly than they have. He said, “So we need to set a price, I think, because it’s too much of a gray area.”

Commissioner Casey Willits: “I’m at the point that I’m ready to have no roam towing and no roam immobilization, just none of it.”

Willits added, “I’m at the point that I’m ready to have no roam towing and no roam immobilization, just none of it. You have to call in… If companies can make the books balance at $65 for immobilization in Miami-Dade… then surely $65 can work here, as well. But I’m ready to get rid of all of it and go for a year or two and see how it goes with the call-in… Other communities magically survive without it; I suspect we can survive, as well.”

Regarding the recommendation to prohibit those convicted of felony sexual offenses from being tow truck drivers or performing immobilizations, Willits said, “We want people to have a lot of second chances.” He was concerned that it was “restrictive” for people “who just need a job doing something,” but he said he understood “the anxiety about it, at the same time.”

Commissioner Bryan Eastman said, “I think we are at a point where we could eliminate roam towing and just have it all be call-in towing… I’m open to the idea of eliminating roam immobilization as well, but… I am also cognizant of the fact that we don’t have in the room here the actual people that all of this is for, which is the people that own the parking lots.” He said consumer protections are important because the consumer does not get to select the towing company.

Commissioner Cynthia Chestnut said she wanted to focus on towing and “take [immobilization] off the table.” She also wanted to look at increasing the maximum fee for towing, because it has not increased in about 15 years. 

Kurnick recommended mirroring Alachua County’s ordinance, which sets the maximum towing fee at $160, but she noted that there are other fees that should also be specified in the ordinance, like the admin fee, the lien release fee, and the storage fee.

Mayor Harvey Ward: “This is not a violent crime we’re trying to deal with here. What we’re trying to do, optimally, is clear up a parking space.”

Mayor Ward said that over the decades, roam towing “has given Gainesville a really bad reputation… This is not a violent crime we’re trying to deal with here. What we’re trying to do, optimally, is clear up a parking space.” Ward said he wants towing companies to “thrive — I don’t want a company in our community to not thrive. I’m not trying to shut a company down here.”

Mayor Ward: “There is no way that I can support the practice of immobilization moving forward. I don’t want to promote the practice of immobilization for the City of Gainesville, either, as an entity. I don’t think we should be immobilizing vehicles in the city of Gainesville… I want to end the immobilizations as soon as we possibly can.”

Ward said the affected parties include the people who own the parking spaces, who have a legitimate expectation of controlling the use of those spaces; people who are legitimate users of those parking spaces; and people who are unlawfully using the spaces — “and yes, they are breaking the rules, but I am not in the business here, as we discuss this, of trying to produce corrective behavior or penalizing people for that. What I’m trying to do is figure out how [to] get the space empty… There is no way that I can support the practice of immobilization moving forward. I don’t want to promote the practice of immobilization for the City of Gainesville, either, as an entity. I don’t think we should be immobilizing vehicles in the city of Gainesville.” He added that he doesn’t want to drag this out for months, “while we try to get all the details of an ordinance correct. I want to end the immobilizations as soon as we possibly can.”

Ward continued, “Regarding roam towing itself, I could be convinced to get rid of it altogether… I do think that business owners, particularly apartment owners, probably would think differently about that, and I’m willing to be swayed a little on the roam towing idea. But roam towing as we currently know it — no, it cannot persist this way.” He also supported matching Alachua County’s fee schedule and prohibiting any fees that aren’t on the schedule.

City immobilizes a vehicle after it accumulates three unpaid citations

Special Project Administrator Phil Mann clarified that the City only immobilizes vehicles when the vehicle has at least three citations that have not been paid for a minimum period of time: “On the fifth citation, we tow them.”

Ward responded, “I still don’t want to immobilize, I just don’t. I don’t think it fixes the problem, but it does get the back tickets paid, I realize that, but it still doesn’t free up the space, which is, again, even as a City, what we’re trying to accomplish.”

Willits said apartment complexes like roam towing for “efficiency… You know, someone doesn’t have to go out there and call… Large apartment complexes, because they don’t have to have someone on staff, they choose not to… Apartment complexes should have more staff. There should be a minimum level… I’m not proposing that; the apartment owners will, you know, skin me alive.”

Mayor Ward: “So, to be clear, I’m not going to vote for anything today that doesn’t include getting rid of the immobilization quickly.”

Willits asked what they could do most quickly, and the answer was that the fees can be changed with a Resolution. Ward said, “So, to be clear, I’m not going to vote for anything today that doesn’t include getting rid of the immobilization quickly.”

Commissioner James Ingle said roam towing was most important to him: “I think that is the most predatory, and I think that is the most concerning.”

Commissioner Bryan Eastman: “I think [immobilization] is better than the alternative,… which is — the cars were just getting taken, getting taken, getting taken.”

Eastman said it feels more “invasive” to come out and find that your car is gone, and even with “all of the negatives that came from the increase in booting in recent years,… I think it is better than the alternative,… which is — the cars were just getting taken, getting taken, getting taken… I don’t want the incentive structure to go back toward the mass towing that was the standard a couple years ago.”

Ward said, “I’m also 100% in favor of a minimum of the Tallahassee structure of roam towing, and I would be willing to consider elimination of roam towing. So yes, getting rid of immobilization and letting roam towing continue to exist as it currently does would not be good, but I’m kind of done with both.”

Commissioner Ed Book pointed out that the Commission has not heard feedback from some of the affected parties, and he mentioned that there are 593 companies that have trespass towing contracts; Kurnick said that not all of those are for roam towing. Kurnick also told Commissioners that there are four trespass towing companies in Gainesville, and two of them have immobilization permits.

Monica Jordan, the City’s previous Tow Administrator, said some of the recent shift to immobilization arose from the increased availability of immobilization services and a shortage of drivers for tow trucks, plus it costs less and takes less time to immobilize a vehicle. 

Book said he was “very reluctant to get rid of complete immobilization” without talking to the owners of the parking spaces that use the towing and immobilization services.

First motion

Book made a motion to direct staff to bring back a Resolution to mirror Alachua County’s fees “and ensure all other potential fees are regulated.” Ingle seconded the motion.

Eastman said he didn’t want the immobilization fee to be $160 and added that he had planned to make a motion to set the immobilization fee at $65; Book and Ingle agreed to make that change to the motion. Ward suggested adding the word “inclusive” to ensure that no additional fees are charged.

The final form of the motion, restated by Ward, was, “Direct staff to come back with a Resolution mirroring the Alachua County fee schedule, except setting immobilization fees to a maximum of $65, inclusive.”

The motion passed 6-0, with Commissioner Desmon Duncan-Walker absent.

Willits said he had “some sympathy” for businesses that call in a vehicle that is unlawfully parked and are told a tow truck isn’t available, but the company can send someone over to put a boot on the vehicle. He said he understood why some Commissioners supported prohibiting roam immobilization, but he wanted to have an option for call-in immobilization.

Second motion

Willits made a motion to direct staff to bring back “an ordinance or ordinances that prohibit roam towing and roam immobilizations and any other staff recommendations for cleaning up our towing ordinance.” Ingle and Chestnut seconded the motion. After some discussion about whether that was clear enough, Willits withdrew the motion.

Third motion

Willits made a replacement motion “to bring back multiple ordinances, one or more ordinances, that completely eliminate roam towing, roam immobilization, and other staff recommendations for cleaning up the ordinance; and one that eliminates roam immobilization but keeps some form of roam towing, à la Tallahassee, a limited multifamily, so we have some options going into it.”

Persons suggested that staff could bring back two options for discussion, and then the City could advertise an ordinance for the option selected by the Commission. 

Willits amended his motion to ask staff to “bring us back options, including complete elimination of roam towing and roam immobilization, and an option to have limited roam towing, à la Tallahassee. So it’s not an ordinance — and staff recommendation for other updates to the ordinance.” Chestnut seconded the motion.

Persons said that motion would give staff an opportunity to reach out to property owners before they bring back the options, and he emphasized that he understood the Commission wanted staff to do it quickly.

Mayor Ward: “This is not just about students. This is about lots of people in our community for whom $65 is real, $100 is real, and $120 is real. It’s not somebody driving Daddy’s Mercedes. We’re talking about real people who are really affected by this, and for whom 65 bucks might be not paying rent.”

Ward pointed out that the timing means that not many students will “be able to take part in the discussion” because many of them are leaving for the summer. He said, “We sometimes say something only affects students. First of all, students live here, and they are residents and neighbors in our community. But also, this is not just about students. This is about lots of people in our community for whom $65 is real, $100 is real, and $120 is real. It’s not somebody driving Daddy’s Mercedes. We’re talking about real people who are really affected by this, and for whom 65 bucks might be not paying rent.”

The motion passed 6-0, with Duncan-Walker absent.