Predatory Regulation

Kansas City City Council is prepared to pass a new ordinance today regulating “predatory” towing charges. The council, led by Cindy Circo, is outraged because of a few citizen complaints about how much they have to pay to get their illegally parked cars back.

The critical word here is “illegally.” These are people who ignored signs in private lots and parked their cars where they should not have. In most cases they took a risk to get a closer parking spot, and they lost.

Now comes the City Council to save these poor lawbreakers from their own stupidity. They want to regulate how much a private company can charge private citizens for a service. That is an unheard of move for a city council, and a scary precedent. The council took no steps to find out what the cost of doing business is for the tow companies. They have no idea how much profit these companies make. Yet they are setting prices for an industry.

Few will argue that private lot owners have a right to protect their property. Few will argue that they have a right to tow trespasser’s cars away. Since private companies can not issue tickets (and the city can not issue tickets on private property), in order to create a disincentive, those lot owners have every right to employ tow companies who will charge a rate that makes trespassers think twice about repeating their mistakes. No city council has the right to step into that private business relationship.

The Source urges the Kansas City City Council to reconsider and reject the bill before them. Should they not, we suspect it will be fought in court, a fight the city can not afford.