They seem to be doing it for a fee, which is just stupid.
When cars are 'booted' in US, is there no ticket to go along with it to bring further repercussions if it is illegally removed?
It’s done by private orgs, not the city. There is no ticket. Just a boot and a fine to pay to remove the boot.
These boot girls are charging $50 or something. The fee to remove the boot is usually 85-200+.
Personally, I’m happy to pay these people any amount over paying the super jerk boot people.
I had a guy put a boot on my car while I was walking over to pay the parking box. He wouldn’t remove it until I paid $85.
I had another boot put on my car from a bank’s parking lot. The bank was closed, the lot was open, there were no signs or attendants. Just an open lot. The boot operator claimed he had the right to boot but would not produce any documents. I paid $160 to remove my boot. I contacted the bank the next day and they said they don’t contract with anyone for parking enforcement when they are closed.
Atlanta booters can all go bankrupt for what I care. These ladies are heroes.
An hour of illegal parking should never warrant a 160 dollar fine to remove a boot.
Yes, but if you want to compare it to a store then everything in the cart has to be something that will expire in an hour, and the shelves restock whether or not anyone buys them. And there's nobody around that can fix the self-checkout or check you out themselves.
> life is way too short
I'm only here to talk about the analogy you made, not give advice on parking.
But I wasn't arguing that, I'm saying it's not like theft.
It especially doesn’t mean you have any expectation not to be treated poorly by that business the way you would if you’d complied with your side of the legal agreement. If you’d paid and the business failed to track that payment properly, you’d be getting serious compensation because there would be a legal contract they weren’t honoring.
What are these laws you speak of?
It varies but the general idea is that large landowners have to allow some access for hiking or even camping.
Then yea, I would probably walk out with my stuff, knowing I had made a good faith effort to pay.
Step 1: Break parking pay station.
Step 2: Boot people's cars for not paying for parking.
Step 3: Profit!
I had a cop help me try to cut an unlabeled bike lock off my bike.
The business had double-locked it to a rail I'd locked it to, because apparently that was forbidden. Unfortunately, there was no sign, so I had no idea.
Cop and I worked on it for awhile, then he gave the security guard an earful for not leaving a message.
Side note: of all the bike locks, braided are by far the most annoying to cut, because they're impervious to bolt cutters.
The beauty of it is that it's an economic argument... in order to make something impervious to grinding, you'd generally have to make the thing too expensive for its primary purpose.
The locks on these things (and other things) are 99% of the time abysmal.
So you can expect that "thanks" to these girls, the city will give authority to these third party companies to put a boot on the car and make it illegal to remove it? I don't foresee any other pro-people action: the easiest is to make it illegal to remove a boot.
> “While owning a boot key is not illegal, here is what the public needs to know,” reads the department’s Facebook page. “If you use a Boot Key to modify, tamper, or disengage a booting device from a vehicle, you can be charged with: Criminal Trespass, and/or Theft of Services, and/orTheft by Taking, and/or Damage to Property 2nd Degree.”
I read comments here of people who got their car "booted" (not sure what verb to use:) ) by not authorized companies.
How do you even know what is authorized and what is scam?
What a nasty issue, to be honest.
It’s more likely that booting will stop altogether than new, pro-boot legislation will pass.
It's incredible sometimes to hear that this happens in a modern city/country.
So this means that you can start a business and simply put a boot on any car almost everywhere ...and people just have to pay???
I paid because I wanted to get the boot off my car. I also then warned someone else away before they got a boot and the boot operator started screaming at me. All pretty shady.