By Ray Gronberg

gronberg@heraldsun.com; 419-6648

DURHAM -- A Duke University law school student is pushing City Council members to beef up regulations affecting how tow companies operate, particularly about how they handle tows from private parking lots.

The student, Carmen Jo Ponce, says Durham's rules offer less protection to residents and visitors against so-called "predatory towing" practices than the laws of neighboring Raleigh and Chapel Hill.

Ponce said her introduction to Durham after coming here for school in 2008 "was not the warmest welcome I've ever had to a city," thanks to an encounter with a tower that cost her $150. Her car got "booted" in a private lot while she and friends were eating at a restaurant off Guess Road.

Her call for additional restrictions on towing companies has some support among elected officials, most vocally from Councilman Eugene Brown.

"There is definitely, at least in my judgment, action that can or should be taken," Brown said.

But council members agreed late last year that the city's towing committee should study the matter first. The panel, chaired by Councilman Howard Clement, has yet to take up the debate.

Clement said Wednesday he's trying to schedule a meeting at a time when Ponce can attend. He also expects to hear from Durham Police Department officials, and from towing company representatives who usually provide "a big crowd at these hearings."

The phrase "predatory towing" usually is meant as criticism of the practice of allowing tow operators to remove cars from private lots, mostly at night, in lieu of large cash payments for their release.

Complaints most often center on towers' practice of hovering near lots to watch for potential targets, their unwillingness to release vehicles from a tow without some payment, and the failure of some lot owners to post warning signs on their property.

Durham law in theory caps the charge for a tow at $125, but Ponce notes that the city allows companies to lard the bill with extra charges.

They include an immediate $25 storage fee, a $21.25 "unusual circumstances" fee for any tow that takes more than half an hour to complete, and a $35 fee for releasing cars after normal business hours.

Raleigh and Chapel Hill, by contrast, cap the towing charge at $100 and bar companies for charging for storage in the first 24 hours after a haul.

Also, unlike Durham, they require companies to release a vehicle for $50 if the owner returns to the scene before it's been hauled off. Both also require tow drivers to accept credit and debit cards.

Raleigh additionally requires towers to have someone on call 24 hours a day to release cars, and to allow vehicle owners to remove personal property from their cars and trucks without charge.

Charlotte and Asheville have similar but not identical restrictions.

Asheville's City Council passed that city's towing rules last spring, following complaints from visitors and a December 2008 incident where police arrested a pair of tow drivers for hauling off a car that was legally parked.

Those arrests were actually the product of a sting, as Asheville police paid $3 to park the car in a lot and then watched it until the towers arrived, hooked it up and hauled it away. The men were charged with obtaining property by false pretenses.

The minutes of the Asheville City Council debate on that city's rules indicate that some officials were worried tow operators there were paying kickbacks to parking-lot owners.

An Asheville state legislator, Senate Majority Leader Martin Nesbitt, D-Buncombe, has proposed a statewide, $75 cap on the fee towers can charge for hauling a vehicle without its owner's consent.