Philadelphia News

‘Borderline illegal’: Courtesy tows remain Philly’s persistent parking nightmare

Drivers who get sucked into the bureaucratic vortex describe it as city-sanctioned auto theft, sometimes followed by punishing fines from the Philadelphia Parking Authority.

by William Bender
Updated Mar 19, 2021

Gary Isaacs returned home from a trip to California in January to discover his car missing from its Center City parking spot and two alarming letters in the mail. ... The Philadelphia Parking Authority, in a letter dated Dec. 22, informed Isaacs that it had towed and impounded his car.

And a notice from the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, dated Dec. 30, warned him that the car was scheduled to go on the auction block. ... “YOU ARE HEREBY GIVEN NOTICE,” the court wrote, “that the vehicle listed below will be sold at auction and your legal and equitable interest in that vehicle will be extinguished. ...”

Isaacs was mystified. He’d last parked his 2005 BMW on Camac Street, within the area covered by his parking permit — not in a loading zone on Lombard Street, as the PPA was contending in its letter.

The next day, he called the parking authority, hoping to clear up the misunderstanding. A woman there said his car had apparently been “courtesy towed” from Camac to Lombard because while he was gone, his original parking space had been declared a temporary no-parking zone, reasons unknown.

“I had never heard of a ‘courtesy tow,’” said Isaacs, 61, who runs a small nonprofit that fights homelessness. “It sounds like a generous thing to do. Except they towed it to a place where it was illegal to park. And then they ticketed it, and impounded it, and put it up for auction.”

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