Charlotte drivers who've had their cars hauled away by a private towing company know the sting of the bill that follows. Now city leaders are looking at ways to make predatory towing operators think twice, weighing new rules that would tighten when companies need a property owner's written sign-off and how steep the penalties get for breaking the rules.
The Charlotte City Council's safety committee met this week to hear proposed updates to the city's towing ordinance, according to WBTV. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department attorney Jessica Battle walked council members through the options, which include requiring towing companies to get written permission from private property owners before towing a vehicle at any hour of the day. Currently, that written-permission requirement only applies between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., according to WCCB Charlotte.
As WSOC-TV reports, Channel 9 has heard from drivers who say towing companies charged them an extra fee simply for calling the police, and others who say they were billed thousands of dollars just to get their vehicles back. Council member Dante Anderson referenced similar complaints during the committee discussion, saying residents have described being charged $1,100 or more in incidents she characterized as predatory towing, per the same WCCB account.
Fines Capped at $100 Under Current Rules
Part of the frustration voiced at the meeting centers on how little bite the city's current penalties carry. The fine for violating Charlotte's towing ordinance is capped at $100, the station's report notes, and officials are now considering whether to raise that ceiling to give the rule more teeth. Council Member Dimple Ajmera said she'd like to see the city increase penalties for predatory towing and also create a formal process for tracking repeat violators.
Ajmera specifically floated forwarding information about repeat offenders to North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson's office, according to the WBTV account of the meeting. Battle told the committee that Charlotte police still spend hundreds of hours responding to towing-related calls, even though her department estimates that 90% of towing businesses in the city are operating above board.
State Law Ties the City's Hands
Charlotte's options are constrained by North Carolina law and a 2014 state Supreme Court decision that limits how far cities can go in regulating towing charges, per the WBTV report. That legal ceiling is part of why a case against Charlotte-based A1 Towing Solutions and its owner, David Jewel Satterfield, has drawn attention statewide. A North Carolina Department of Justice judgment against the company gave the state a legal framework to pursue similar cases, according to QC News, which reported that fees in some cases tied to the company exceeded $4,000.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department records reviewed by WBTV in an earlier investigation show that companies operated by Tim Davis and Satterfield towed thousands of vehicles from apartment complexes, businesses and gas stations around the city. That outlet has published more than a dozen stories focused on Satterfield since 2019, underscoring how long the issue has simmered in Charlotte before reaching the council floor this week.
Statewide Reform Has Stalled
Complaints about towing practices aren't unique to Charlotte. State Sen. Caleb Theodros has pointed to the sheer volume of constituent complaints as evidence of a broader problem, telling the Charlotte Observer that hearing the same grievances hundreds of times amounts to a pattern. The Observer also reported that Charlotte business owner Charles Osborne was charged $1,180 after his apartment complex issued him the wrong parking sticker.
Lawmakers elsewhere in the state have described even steeper bills. Rep. Carolyn Logan said a Charlotte towing company charged $12,000 to remove a boot from an illegally parked tractor-trailer while its driver was still inside, and Rep. Carson Smith said a trucker in his district was charged $3,500 to retrieve his rig, both according to WRAL. A separate proposed bill would add permitting, signage, database and penalty requirements for towing companies statewide, though House Bill 199, an earlier reform effort, has not advanced.
Raleigh has already acted on its own, adopting an ordinance that limits towing companies to charging no more than $100 to retrieve a vehicle and bars storage fees during the first 24 hours, according to CBS 17. That outlet reported that Raleigh driver Adrian Quesada was still charged nearly $200 by a company called Unlimited Recovery, and that the state Attorney General's Office recorded 78 towing-related complaints in 2017, with no single company drawing more than three. For now, Charlotte's path forward remains a local one, built around what little room state law leaves the city to push back.
