Fast Food Restaurant Customers Frustrated With Towing Company, Poor Signage In Southlake
SOUTHLAKE (CBSDFW.COM) - Confusion over parking near a Chick-fil-A restaurant in Southlake angered dozens of customers who found their cars had been towed.
Chick-fil-A draws a big crowd and customers are welcome to park, but if it overflows beyond a patch of grass then there's trouble.
Arguments broke out as drivers tried to stop a tow truck.
"People are continuing to park here, because there's not appropriate signage," said Vanessa Garcia, a driver.
Garcia was one of the dozens of Chick-fil-A customers who were towed this week.
She said she was approached by an employee.
"He looked at me and he already knew before I said anything and he said, 'Yea, we don't know why but they're towing people left and right,'" said Garcia.
There are tow signs, though.
There's a sign drivers pass by that reads 'Patron parking only.'
"I'm thinking I'm about to pay $12 for my Chick-fil-A so I'm fine," said Garcia.
The signs, which only recently went up, actually refer solely to the patrons of the property even though there aren't any.
"It's an empty building," said Garcia of the shuttered Taco Bueno location.
Complaints reached Southlake's Mayor Laura Hill, who posted online city staff are speaking to the listing agent.
"This is super un-neighborly to say the least while they agree the tow truck driver's sneakiness needs to stop, they are unwilling to stop the towing," she wrote in an Facebook post.
"I'm not the only one whose mad, because this is (explicative),"
The police chief has urged angry customers to call, TDLR, the state agency that oversees tow companies.
"I stopped maybe forty different cars from parking here and I just kept crying and telling people, 'Hey you can't park here, they will take your car,'" said Garcia.
She recently moved to Texas and said she was trying to help others and found others stepping in to help her.
"So many people checked on me to make sure I had a ride or could get to my car," said Garcia. "A very kind woman named Dana gave me $200 toward my tow. Another gentleman walked up and just handed me cash. I tried to give it back but they insisted. People here are just unbelievably nice."
CBS 11 reached out to CMS Recovery Towing and the property's leasing company but there hasn't been a response.
A manager at Chick-fil-A said after several very busy days, he didn't see anyone towed today.
