ATLANTA — Booting is back under the microscope with new police body camera video.
Drivers who paid to watch a comedy show at Buckhead Theatre said a parking enforcement company called Empire Parking Services illegally booted their cars while they were enjoying the show.
“All the rest of our plans, the rest of our night, torpedoed,” said Mark Mobley.
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Police showed up at the parking lot at 3120 Peachtree Rd. NE to find a group of drivers who said they left a comedy show at the theater to find yellow boots locking up the wheels of their cars.
In the body camera video, you can see two Empire Parking Services attendants who put the boots there and would not take them off.
The officer asked the crowd, “Everybody paid, right?” The crowd answered yes.
He asked the attendants, “You do acknowledge they all paid, right?”. One employee responds, “I do.”
He proceeds to tell the officer the drivers paid when they bought tickets to the show online. He said he needs to verify their Ticketmaster receipts.
He told the officer that would take about 15 minutes. Drivers told the officer they’d been trying to convince the company to do that for an hour and a half.
“If he takes long, I’m just going to make him take them off or take him to jail because that’s fraud at this point,” the officer told other officers responding.
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While they wait for the attendants to make phone calls, officers talk to one another about the ticketing practice leading to violence, property damage and lawsuits in the past.
Finally, the parking attendants decide to remove the boots for free. The crowd cheers and gave one another high fives. They told the officers thank you.
“It just took for us showing up,” the officer told the crowd.
Now, those drivers want to know if Empire Parking Services is going to change procedures connected to events at the theater.
“This is just the kind of thing that would make somebody not want to come into downtown Atlanta,” said Mobley.
It costs $75 to remove the boot and $75 for each day you leave it on your car.
Channel 2 has e-mailed and calls Empire Parking Services to find out if this case has caused the company to review its policies. We’ve been waiting for a response for more than a week.
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