Juliet Miller’s night was already going in the wrong direction. She recalls one terrible night some months back when she was working as a server at one of the restaurants in the Piazza at Schmidt’s in Northern Liberties.

“We had an ex-employee who threatened to come back and shoot all of us,” Miller said. “At 2:30 in the morning he came in the back door.”

Fearing for her life, she fled to the basement where her manager was also hiding. Miller dialed 911 and hid in a bathroom until police arrived. Time passed by as the police cleared the scene. Before she knew it, 3AM had passed and her car was still parked in the gravel parking lot adjacent to the Piazza along the 1000 block of Germantown Avenue.

Up until two months ago this property was aggressively patrolled by George A. Smith Towing (GAST). Now the lot is only patrolled between 3AM and 5AM. The parking lot appeared in the opening phases of the Piazza and has remained relatively unchanged since. When the lot first opened, the rules of parking seemed simple: One side is for Piazza residents and the other side is for patrons of the bars, restaurants and shops there. After 3AM vehicles without residential permits were towed to GAST’s storage lot in Southwest Philadelphia at 3103 S. 61st St.

Miller was well aware she couldn’t park in the lot past 3AM without a permit and that there was a chance her car would be towed.

Following the restaurant scare, Miller asked an officer to escort her to her car. Miller says she arrived at her car at 3:03AM to find a GAST tow truck driver hooking up her car. She pleaded with the man. “I told the tow truck there’s four cop cars here because I called them [and about] the guy was going to shoot us up and rape me in the alley,” Miller said. “The tow truck driver did not care. He charged me $200 to get my car unhooked, even though I had a police escort.” Miller moved her car onto the street and returned to the restaurant to continue giving a statement to the police.

Many have faced the wrath of George A. Smith Towing. An article appearing on Philly.com last November described an incident where Kevin Ricker and 21 of his fellow Piazza residents woke up to find all their cars had been towed in the overnight hours with no explanation. It’s also pretty easy to find out what people think of GAST by reading their Yelp reviews. Maegan Wenlock is one of these Yelpers. One night she came to find her car had been towed. With a dead phone and no way to contact anyone, she was offered a ride by a GAST tow truck driver to the storage lot.

“It was out in Southwest Philly in kind of a vacant lot,” Wenlock said. She admitted getting into a stranger’s truck was not one of her best ideas, but she felt helpless. “You’re kind of stuck out there in a not-so-great place, especially being a young woman by yourself. It’s bad enough that your car has been towed, but it’s another thing to be put in a foreign place. It was like something out of a movie.”

The 26th Police District covers the parking lot at the Piazza and fields complaints from confused people wondering where their car went. In order to combat this confusion, strict guidelines on documenting and reporting tows were created. Under City Code 9-605 (11), tow truck drivers must first notify the police so they can place the vehicle in the “Department’s Tow File” before any handling of the vehicle occurs. The driver must also take a digital photograph depicting the license plate, the violation and the sign stating that the vehicle is not authorized to park where it is.

Sgt. John Massi of the 26th was attending one of the District’s quarterly nightclub task force meetings with members of the community, Northern Liberties Neighbors Association and representative from Licenses and Inspections. Toward the end of the meeting, Massi mentioned that he was having an issue with GAST at the Piazza. Many at the meeting began chiming in with their own stories and issues regarding the parking situation there. According to Sgt. Massi, he reached out to Ryan Blatstein, the son of developer Bart Blatstein, and expressed his districts’ grievances regarding the towing along the 1000 Block of Germantown Avenue.

“I feel that he’s [George A. Smith Towing] overstepping his bounds. People are being misled and it’s confusing,” Sgt. Massi said.

“Every incident I responded to was either a tenant or a customer who had their car towed while they were patronizing the Piazza. I would think they would try to tow people who weren’t patronizing the Piazza.”

Currently, George A. Smith drivers only tow from the gravel parking between 3AM and 5AM. Half the parking lot is now under construction and a new parking garage is on the way. Your car can also be towed if it’s parked on the 1000 block of Germantown Avenue., or along the 1000 block of Hancock Street, which runs along the east side of the Piazza.

These streets are designated by signs reading “Private Street” — a distinction that supposedly allows private towing companies, like GAST, to tow unauthorized vehicles. We had always assumed these were public roads, so The Spirit contacted L&I. We spoke with Beth Grossman, L&I Chief of Staff, to find out who owns the 1000 block of Germantown Avenue.

“We’re having trouble determining who even owns [the land],” Grossman said. “We’re trying to figure it out.”

We contacted Grossman again a few weeks later. After speaking with the Streets Department, Grossman, citing a 1983 document which is the most recent documentation relating to this street, said, “The 1000 Block of Germantown Avenue is not a private street, therefore George A. Smith Towing signs are illegal,” Grossman said. “We put in a service request to address this.”

 

Since the revelation that the block is, in fact, a public road and therefore GAST’s signs are illegal these violations are on L&I’s radar and the wheels are in motion to cite GAST for unlawfully posting signs along the 1000 Block of Germantown Avenue.

The Spirit contacted George A. Smith Towing and spoke to Michelle Williams. She’s the office manager there and deals with all the complaints and disputes.

“You have to understand this,” Williams said. “Anyone that get’s towed is irate and will fight it tooth and nail.”

According to Williams, George A. Smith does not post their signs on city streets including the 1000 Block of Germantown Avenue. “The city posted those [private street signs],” Williams said. “They were there prior to us having an agreement over there.”

“The only signs that we post are the George Smith signs or the permit parking signs,” Williams added. “We do not post any signs on the street. If they are standalone cement signs, they have to be within the lot, they cannot be on a city street. We cannot erect them. We have nothing to do with that.”

The Spirit checked to see what kind of signage was at the entrance to the parking lot along Germantown Avenue near the Piazza. “Signs have to be clearly displayed that Illegally parked cars will be towed,” Williams said. “If it has a permit, we won’t tow it. If it doesn’t have a permit, we would tow it because the signs clearly state ‘Permit Parking Only.’”

City Code 9605 (11) states that a sign must be placed in a conspicuous place near the entrance of the lot; the sign must say unauthorized parking is prohibited, vehicles in violation will be towed, the name, address and telephone number of the towing company, the towing and storage charges; and where to make payment and redeem your vehicle. At the entrance to the gravel lot nearest to 2nd Street was a sign ONLY declaring “No Parking between 3AM and 5AM” and “All Cars Will Be Towed at the Owner’s Expense.” While the sign was placed in a conspicuous spot at one of the entrances to the lot, it still lacked at least three key pieces of information required by law. This was the only sign posted at this entrance to the lot and is in violation of City Code 9605 (11).

The Spirit also visited the 1000 block of Germantown Avenue. Posted directly on what appears to be city signs on public streets, which are cemented into the sidewalk, are George A. Smith Towing signs. We counted three GAST signs and two large signs on either end of the block stating it is a “Private Street.” According to L&I’s Grossman, posting private towing signs on city signs on public streets is a violation of the City Code.

Williams stated that towing from the gravel parking lot became such a hassle for GAST that they gave up on towing from there. According to her, the construction shifted all the boundaries and people were destroying signs in order to get out of the violation. Now they’re focusing on towing from the nearby lots and private addresses who contract through them.

Williams wants the public to know that this isn’t a personal issue. “Obviously you’re not doing this deliberately, you’re missing a sign,” Williams said. She also pointed out every truck has cameras on board. According to Williams, it was a relief to not have to tow from there.

If you’re parking at the Piazza and are unsure of your spot, the best thing to do is take a picture of where you parked. That’s what Michelle Williams does. “I will go to the casino in Atlantic City and take a picture of where I park,” Williams said. “I’ve only begun this since working here.”

Editor’s note: In reporting “Who Owns that Parking Lot? An Investigation of Aggressive Towing Practices At the Piazza”, we missed a fact despite a diligent effort to uncover said fact. The issue at hand is whether or not the 1000 block of Germantown Avenue behind the Piazza is a public or private road. A sign there reads private road.

In our reporting we spoke to Beth Grossman from L&I, who said by all accounts it was a public road after checking in with Philadelphia Streets Department. The Spirit requested documentation from L&I and was provided with a map from 1983 depicting the 1000 block of Germantown Avenue, which was a public street at that time. Grossman stated that according to the Streets Department this was the most recent document pertaining to this block. This information was presented to George A. Smith Towing who presented no evidence contradicting what L&I said.

We reached out to NLNA execs for comment to no avail. For the record, The Spirit understands when local civics do not reply to interview requests. They are not paid and have other personal and professional commitments. We reached out the Ryan Blatstein, who developed the area. We spoke with local police. And we discussed the block with a George A. Smith company spokesperson, who did not have any specific information to the blocks status.

When we published the story some very astute readers pointed out that the block was private and that was known. NLNA’s President Matt Ruben confirmed that fact at that point and added that it was a City Council ordinance from “8-10 years ago.”

This was a surprise because we checked on the Phila.gov website, including City Council’s portion of the site, and found nothing referring to the 1000 block of Germantown Avenue. After honing in the search with Ruben’s info, we found a document from 2000. In it the language does not refer to the 1000 block of Germantown Avenue, it instead uses the boundary blocks of 2nd Street and Wildey Street. Here’s a link to that document: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2506017-towing-doc-certifiedcopy01038900.html

When reporting any story a reporter always asks, “Did I ask my sources enough questions? Did I ask enough sources?” We feel our reporter did his due diligence on the article. We are now looking into why city agencies don’t possess the same/consistent info so that citizens and journalists can find out what the situation is.   

-Spirit Staff