December 26, 2010 07:15 PM UTC

Denver's vehicle impound policy

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• by: cologeek

or, How to be a legal car thief.

From Fox 31:

A FOX31 News investigation has learned the City and County of Denver has impounded nearly 1,600 vehicles in 2010, or around four vehicles a day, under a controversial nuisance law.

Most cities waive all fees if the person is found not guilty, but not Denver.

…….

McAnally was found not guilty of the misdemeanor charge Denver cited when it took his work truck, but Denver officials told him that it doesn’t matter; he still has to pay $5,000 to get his truck out of the impound lot.

McAnally doesn’t have the money, so the nuisance ordinance gives Denver the authority to sell his truck at auction and keep the proceeds, and then garnish his wages, including interest. (emphasis mine)

……..

The way the ordinance is written leaves people with no way to fight it.

According to consumer advocate Tom Martino, people have no recourse.  “Denver says that’s our law, we don’t care if you’re innocent, we don’t care if you’re not guilty,” he said.

I work for a towing company that impounds vehicles for the State Patrol and private property owners (businesses and apartment complexes mostly).  I regularly pick up vehicles at the Colorado Springs Police Impound lot.  I have never heard of a five thousand dollar impound fee.  The most we ever charged in my experience was around $3500 for a tractor-trailer rollover that required the trailer to be loaded on a flatbed.  That included storage time.  I think the largest check I handed over to CSPD Impound was around $800, and that car had been sitting in the yard for couple of months.

If we tried to charge anywhere near 5 grand for impounding a car, the State Patrol would drop us like a rock, and the CSPD would revoke our ability to operate as a private property impounder.  And let’s not forget the ability to garnish wages on someone who doesn’t come and get their car out, with interest! That would be a very sweet racket to be into.

So this is what you get with a “big government” mindset.  The small lower-income guy gets pretty much trampled on and squashed by a bureaucracy that is set up to squeeze as much money as possible out of everyone they can grab hold of.  If you want to know why people don’t like big government, you really don’t have to look any further than this.

Big Government hurts small people.