SOUNDING OFF:

I read a letter written by Dennis Crowley upset at the fact that cars were being towed out of lots at Edison High School and the Big Lots Center at Beach Boulevard and Atlanta Avenue (“Towing visitors’ cars about the money,” July 10). Mr. Crowley, if one of those cars was yours, let me be the first to apologize to you and the many others I saw being towed from the Edison lot.

For the past two years a friend and I took advantage of the beautiful day on the Fourth of July, playing tennis at the Edison community center and witnessed the most pathetic display of grabbing the almighty dollar at any cost. Cars were being towed two or three at a time from the lot. This year we counted five tow trucks (three in the lot and two on Magnolia Street) towing cars from the school lot. Metropro towing company made quite a bit that day.

Furious at seeing this for the second year, we went into the parking lot and looked at every sign posted in the lot. There is only one sign posted that might indicate there is no parking. It says “closed campus,” and it’s half covered with stickers on the fourth driveway into the lot, in a drive with a gate across it. Hardly adequate postings.

As a property owner, business owner and 32-year resident of Huntington Beach, it made me sick to see this. The city promotes spending the Fourth here, ads on radio ask people to celebrate with us, and people from inland come here to enjoy a day at the beach. The thank you for this is for their car to be towed from a lot they parked in nearly a mile from the beach. Imagine taking the family to the beach for the day, the kids, towels, boogie boards, ice chest, chairs all set for a day at the beach. Fun in the surf, sand, fireworks show and the day ends with walking back to the car, kids tired and cranky, and you get to the car and, what? No car. Towed, impounded and not accessible for a day or two. If the city knows about this policy, shame on you; the lot is not properly signed to inform people of the risk of being towed. Why tow the cars properly parked in a school lot that is not in session when you can instead make money simply by ticketing them? Instead, you make their memory of the day be “I won’t go the Huntington Beach again ... it cost $300+ to get my car back.”

As for Metropro, your website makes claims of “your honest, ethical and reliable service.” Towing cars parked in a lot that is not posted properly is neither honest nor ethical. City parking laws cite that all entrances to private lots must be posted before a vehicle can be towed.

Also my next holiday day off will be spent sitting in front of the high school, letting people know not to park in the lot because they will be towed — not ticketed, but just towed.

JOANNE MILICHICH is a Huntington Beach resident.