A few Schaumburg office workers are so outraged by a towing company’s aggressive practices that they have been spending their lunch hours in a parking lot off Golf and Meacham Roads, warning restaurant patrons not to park there.
“I’ve seen towed the vehicles of elderly couples, women with babies, handicapped people. … It’s heartbreaking and outrageous,” said Larry Disch, a counselor at the Illinois Institute of Art–Schaumburg.
Disch and a handful of others who work in an office building at 1000 Plaza Drive said they have seen Northwest Recovery Inc. of Rolling Meadows tow as many as 10 vehicles a day–at $150 apiece–from the private lot at the southeast corner of Golf and Meacham.
They say the company places radio-toting spotters in the office building’s south parking lot to beckon tow trucks as soon as a car is parked and its driver is headed toward a restaurant. Within a minute, the truck hooks the car and hauls it away.
Last month, the Illinois Commerce Commission, which regulates towing agencies with private contracts, issued three citations to the company for illegal tows. Northwest Recovery “stacked” vehicles, moving them to a flatbed truck for later transport to a storage lot rather than towing them immediately to the secured lot listed on the towing-zone sign, commission officials said.
The illegal practice allows companies to tow vehicles quickly, depositing them on a waiting truck or in a nearby storage lot and returning for the next tow. Once the companies have accumulated several vehicles, they transport them to state-authorized storage facilities, officials said.
The only reason for stacking, said Commerce Commission Police Officer Steve Morris, is to allow a towing firm “to get more cars faster and make more money.”
Northwest Recovery officials said their company was hired to tow vehicles parked illegally, and that’s all it is doing.
“If the company towed fewer cars, the property owner would find someone else to do the job,” said Donald Rothschild, attorney for Northwest Recovery.
Until last month, Northwest Recovery had contracts with 1000 Plaza Drive and Timothy Gallagher, who owns the restaurant properties Panera Bread, 1140 Plaza Drive; UNO Chicago Grill, 1160 Plaza Drive; and Chevys, 1180 Plaza Drive. But Gallagher suspended his contract with the towing firm because its policy was hurting his customers.
The eight-story office building at 1000 Plaza Drive, which has 500 spaces for parking in the south lot, houses four floors of the Illinois Institute of Art–Schaumburg, an academic institution with 2,000 students, faculty and staff. Liberty Mutual employs about 200 people at that location, a company spokeswoman said.
Many restaurant customers park in the office building’s south lot, despite clearly posted no-parking signs, and the fact that there is space available in the restaurant lot. Although motorists are parked illegally, the vigilantes watch over them. On one recent bitterly cold day, five vigilantes spread out shortly after noon along the perimeter of the office lot.
When a motorist parked there, left his car and began walking toward the restaurants, a person from the group called out: “You will be towed if you park there,” then nodded toward one of Northwest Recovery’s black tow trucks sitting 100 feet away.
“We’re motivated by the need to … stop this injustice from being perpetuated again and again on a daily basis against innocent people,” Disch said.
Donna Semro, 40, of Streamwood didn’t notice the tow truck about 100 feet away when she parked in the office-building’s lot one day last month.
As she walked toward Panera for a cup of soup, the truck backed up to her car, hoisted it on a boom and pulled away.
“I thought it had been stolen and was getting ready to call the police,” she said. “I work two jobs and live paycheck to paycheck. I can’t afford this. I had a gift card from my boss for the soup, and it ended up costing me $150.”
Schaumburg village officials, who have fielded complaints, say they can do nothing.
“As long as they’re not breaking any laws or violating local ordinances, we can only ask them to change their tactics,” Village Manager Ken Fritz said. “We asked, and they politely declined.”
Northwest Recovery has 60 days to fight the three charges in an administrative hearing or pay the ICC citations, which start at $100 each, then increase to $530 each after 30 days.
Rothschild said his client will fight the charges. Northwest Towing is a scapegoat in a situation where there’s plenty of blame to go around, he said. “We’re just doing the dirty work, like garbage collectors,” he said.
