Latest / Towing News Now / Balancing Business and Regulation in Towing/Varnado

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Balancing Business and Regulation in Towing/Varnado · Towing News Now

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Welcome one and all to the American Towing Recovery Institute podcast.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Remember this is your podcast to promote safety, education, positive public relations and networking within the professional and business-minded towing and recovery industry.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: I'm your co-host, dj Harrington, better known as the Tow Doctor, and my other host is Wes Wilburn, over 40-year towing industry veteran, the founder of American Towing Recovery Institute of Fayetteville, north Carolina.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: He has produced and conducted training and certification programs for leading towing companies, equipment distributors, towing associations, dot, fire departments, rescue, as well as military installations across the United States.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Wes has been published over 100 times in major towing publications published over 100 times in major towing publications.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Wes has developed many courses, including the most recent awareness-level course for all responders that specialize in electric vehicles as well as hybrid, natural gas and hydrogen vehicles.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Wes has provided insight as the main speaker for over 30 years at more than 900 training classes and has been recognized as one of America's greatest towing trainers.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: He is well known for his straightforward but down-to-earth teaching style.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: No-transcript, without further ado.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Here's my dear friend and a great guy for our industry, wes Wilber.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: As always, dj, you're way too kind.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: I certainly appreciate your generous words.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Wes Wilber, glad to be here today.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: I hope everybody's doing great.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Just got back from training in Elkhart, indiana, had a great weekend.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: By the time you all listen to this, we'll be done with training in Sumner, south Carolina.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: So we'll be looking forward to starting out next year In January we're down in Lake Charles, louisiana.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: On January 24th a three-hour electric vehicle course and on the 25th we're doing a one-day heavy duty.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: On the 26th a one-day light duty and that's all in Lake Charles Louisiana.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Also looking forward to next year with some dates in March for Oklahoma and Hickory, north Carolina, I'd be moving that Hickory to Asheville, and then, of course, in April we'll be out on Long Island and then in May we're doing that six-day course, myself and Tom Luciano, full six days, starting out with light duty and going all the way through extreme heavy duty.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: You can get more information on all our dates at our website, wwwamtowriorg, or call the office 910-747-9000.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: A little bit different format today, based on our interview, which will be after the first break.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: I saw a news story where they interviewed him.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Jared Rondeau, friend of the podcast, did a guest hosting gig here one time.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Yes, he did.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Anybody else that's ever done that has been Tanya, tanya, oh, yeah.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: So she's here with us today.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: So, based on the story that I saw, I went back to look it up and I caught several different news articles caught my attention, so we're going to talk about a couple of them before we go to our interview with Jared.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: So, as you look at them, I guess, how do you categorize them?
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: We got one, that's definitely talking about consolidation, which is a big subject, so we could call that we'll put that over in the corner right now.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Call that consolidation corner.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: What do we got Bad news and corner.
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: What do we?
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: got news and more bad news bad news and more bad news, telling you it's unfortunate, um, why don't you go ahead with yours?
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: I'm going to go with this one.
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: First, because I don't want this one to lead into the interview with here, because this is about an impound lot in henderson, nevada, and a man and his family came to pick up their impound car.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: All right, so just real quick for our listeners.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Henderson is a subdivision of Las Vegas.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: I think the lines touch each other.
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: So it's right there in Las Vegas Just paint a picture, because I didn't even know that had been in Las Vegas a couple of times.
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, one of the times that my husband took me to Las Vegas.
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: Imagine that.
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah Well.
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: This one here didn't end too well, though, because the man came with his family to pick up this impounded car, got into an argument with the guy working at the tow lot.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: I don't know if he was the tow truck operator or if he was just a lot of send it.
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: Um, they got it into an altercation.
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: The gentleman working at the tow yard used pepper spray and shot the man so I read it a little bit more.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: Let me just add one piece.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, he was there trying to get his vehicle pulled out of his vehicle, had entered the lot through an open gate.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Apparently Everything he said about the altercation was correct.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: He was leaving, went back to his vehicle, don't know what happened, should have never entered the lot, but it doesn't justify anything.
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: It doesn't justify anything I used to work for a tow truck company before I met my husband and I used I did not usually do the front counter releasing the cars, but I have done that before and I know it could be tricky when you when you're releasing a car and you've got to be really really super careful with that.
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: And when he wasn't picking up the car, he was just kind of or going back to the car, giving access to the car?
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and they didn't give access.
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: He got caught Go ahead and that's what happened.
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: He didn't give access and I think he tried to get access.
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: So the person working at the tail company followed the guy out.
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: They got into an altercation.
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: I think pepper spray was used on the individual and it went from bad to worse from that point on, because the person at the tail company shot that man.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and we'll just make sure we're clear pictures.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: I understand it and we're not taking sides here one way or another, although we do pray for everybody involved.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: The gentleman that had entered the lot that wasn't supposed to be, having left the lot, had come back to his vehicle, was there with his wife and his daughter in the vehicle, and that's when the pepper spray was applied and that's when he was shot three times.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: The article is about the lawsuit, the wrongful death lawsuit, isn't it?
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: This one here isn't not the one that I pulled up.
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: The police were called the gentleman, I think, reached out and I think one of them definitely killed him.
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: They said that the man who hit the shooter wasn't any longer a threat but tried to go all the way around because I'm sure the person felt threatened.
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: That's escalated from there, but the man had a family with him.
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: So you don't un unlook that, you don't unsee that.
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: So that's my bad story.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: What yours this is out of utah.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: A man is accused of lying to police about safely securing a bulldozer on his flatbed tow truck, which resulted in the death of a Utah CEO and his daughter A gentleman that owns a tow company had a very heavy bulldozer on a flatbed tow truck.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: I just want to read some of those facts, so there's no misjudgment here.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: As emergency crews arrive oh no, let me back up.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: The uh.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Driving through the canyon, as the vehicles are passing each other, the bulldozer slid to the left and landed on top of a passenger compartment of the victim's vehicle, crushing and killing the driver and his daughter, and seriously injuring another passenger as emergency crews arrived.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: Love was found near the open storage compartment of the flatbed.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: Documents say that the gentleman admitted to the county deputy that he was moving chains.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: The deputy told him to leave everything right where it is, since the scene has become a crime scene.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: They reported the chains that were not present before the accident.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: They removed the chains that were not present before the accident, according to documents.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: They interviewed him and he said he changed it down a certain way.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: But then they found I'm just kind of paraphrasing a little bit of this One of the things they because it was a death.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: They found video cameras down the road of the truck coming to a gas station where they saw what chains were on it or weren't on it.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: Truck was overloaded by 4,300 pounds but, much more importantly, it was a 32,000 pound machine and he had about 5,000 pounds of procurement holding down a 32,000 pound machine.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: I'm just trying to get to all the details here, making sure I'm not missing.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: I'm just trying to get to all the details here, making sure I'm not missing anything.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: According to the documents, witnesses gave written statements to police that neither the driver nor the other person crossed into the oncoming traffic or another.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: They also found evidence that an impact caused the bulldozer to break free from the tow truck.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: Horrible situation and it cost two people their life and I hate it.
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: I'm praying for everybody involved.
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it was a father that owned his own business and a young lady's daughter.
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: It looks like from the picture I seen she was like in her early teens.
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: And I know every life is important and critical, but it's always harder to hear when it's somebody that's young but also got left that we get that story from consolidation corner.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: There are great interviews coming up well, there's the conduct, consolidation.
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: Okay, so East Coast Towing has acquired John Eagling Trucking.
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: East Coast Towing is like one of the really good companies in the.
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: Raleigh area I was researching.
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: I'm in North Carolina, that's where we're at and we kind of are more in tune with the state sometimes because it's our local thing and there are a lot of great companies in North Carolina but there's a few in the Raleigh area that per year come in to the news for not being great.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: Per year.
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know per year, Like there's a couple per year that get in the Raleigh Apex area specifically per year.
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: There's a couple of them that are just not doing the right thing and are overcharging.
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: They may have good equipment or bad equipment, but they're just not doing the right thing.
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: East Coast is one of the companies that's trying to do it right.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, their original founder was one of the founding members of the Institute.
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: But they consolidated this to have just like another branch and another outfit.
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: To be more professional, they're mainstreaming their things together.
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: They're both running their separate things still and are merging it in gradually, so it's more of a natural fit.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: It's another group of consolidators that are out there trying to do things right.
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: So it says effective immediately.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: So it says effective immediately.
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: Donnie Link Trucking will operate at East Coast Heavy Haul, a division of East Coast Towing, providing a seamless transition for current customers who can't expect the same high-quality service.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: And I think it's a good thing.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: We wish them all the luck and success with their new venture.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: So that's something we're going to start following a little bit closer to everything that's going on with the validation, also what's going on with legislation and stuff.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: So, folks listening, if you've got any news on any of those fronts we're focusing more and more as we come into 2025, the fresh new year, and we're going to focus on getting information out to our listeners as quick as possible.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: I hope folks like the new little segment we threw in Hang around until after the break and we'll have a great interview with Pino's friend, Jared Barnado.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: Information in this podcast is made possible by generous sponsorship from Henry's Wrecker, serving the community with quality towing and recovery for over 40 years.
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: Henryswreckercom, traa, the Injured Drivers Fund and legislation that makes all of us safer are what makes this industry special.
• 14:27
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• 14:30
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• 14:31
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• 14:43
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• 14:52
  Speaker 1: Welcome back listeners.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: Of course you know you're listening to the number one podcast in towing recovery, the American Towing Recovery Institute podcast, and this is a special edition.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: But I want to remind all of you that we're available on Spotify, itunes, stitcher, iheartmedia, pandora, amazon or wherever you get your podcasts.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: So, without further ado, the gentleman who's been a co-host before, a dear friend of Wes's and a dear friend of mine, wes, I'll turn it over to you.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: Thank you, dj.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: As I talked about in the first segment, there was an article in the news that I saw and when I went to look it back up I found several other articles, which is what led me to the information I talked about in the first segment, which is what led me to the information I talked about in the first segment.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: Jared Varnadoe from Varnadoe and Sons in Louisiana, has been a friend of the podcast, been a guest, been the only guest host besides April.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Welcome back, jared.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: Thanks, wes, glad to be back.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: We had this article, this news story come up.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: A lot of stuff going on in Louisiana.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: You want to give us an overview, I guess?
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: Uh, for the listeners that haven't heard you before on previous podcasts, give us a brief introduction yourself, your family business and, um uh, give us an overview of what's going on in Louisiana.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: I want to run this news interview and address several things.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: I'm sure you've got a couple points you'd like to share with us as well.
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: Absolutely.
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: I'm Jared Vornadoe, third-generation owner of Vornadoe Sons Towing.
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: My grandfather started it in 1957.
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: I am also president of TRPL, which is Louisiana's Towing and Recovery Association.
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: So a little background.
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: We've had an open docket since 2016.
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: Let me back up.
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: Louisiana is regulated by the Public Service Commission, so they regulate our pricing for non-consensual towing, and so we've had an open docket since 2016 that we've never managed to get closed due to lack of data.
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: We're trying to provide it to the Public Service Commission, but there's no real way for them to fact check it to say yes or no.
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: This is approved, this is not, and so that's the problem with being a regulated state is we've got a board that regulates us that doesn't really have any data to regulate it.
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: So it's more of a feeling based on we feel that this price is too high or this price is sufficient, or whatever.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you can't run a business on feeling, can you?
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: Absolutely not.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: So this has been going on for years, trying to get a raise from the public.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: What is it?
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: The Public Utilities Commission.
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: Basic Public Service Commission correct.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: All right, public Service Commission correct, all right.
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: And then there's also some issues that are addressed in this as well, about towing during the LSU football games, I believe.
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: So we have actually received two 15% increases since then.
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: I don't want to mislead someone and let them know that we're not getting raises.
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: We are getting raises.
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: It's just been a fight.
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: The news article that you're referencing.
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: Friday they released a news article about a towing company in Baton Rouge that they feel like is predatorial towing.
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: It's a company that strictly does private property towing.
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: They don't do anything else.
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: Although it's an ugly business, they're good at what they do and they're not breaking the law.
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: They're not doing anything illegal.
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: It's just.
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: Lsu area is a college town so from the public view of it is the prices are too high.
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: But nobody's addressing the real issue of these parking lots have signs front and back that say you know, private parking lot.
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: If you're not a you know a patron of this business, you will be towed.
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: And they continue to park in these private parking lots.
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: Walk across the street to a restaurant or whatever they do and they come back and their vehicle's towed.
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: Of course in the news article there's a lot of details left out as to why the price is the price, but so you know it's typical the news is trying to spin it, as towers in Louisiana are being predatory and taking advantage of college students.
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: Hey, jared, yes, ma'am.
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: This is Tanya.
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: I watched the news clip and the gentleman that was being interviewed I guess he's the only one who's against it, according to the thing that I've seen said that you guys were charging enough.
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: He never did explain how we quantified enough.
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: Like what was this mathematical equation to that?
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: Because I'm sure if you looked at how much you pay for insurance, how much you pay for tires, how much you pay for health insurance, you guys are definitely not charging enough.
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: If you just calculated all that into it.
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: So Commissioner Lewis is the one that went to the news.
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: He's not the only one that's against it, but the others are not speaking out because they're trying to help us solve the problem instead of creating more issues and trying to put a target on us the real issue.
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: So I had a conversation with the lady that owns the company in Baton Rouge last night.
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: They have a 1% retention rate, meaning let's just use round numbers 3,000 vehicles that they picked up last year they only ended up with, I think she said, 30 that got dumped on them, 30 that got dumped on them Whereas as a non-consensual tolling company off a rotation list, we have upwards of 65 to 70% retention rate every year.
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: So that's the issue, and so the last push we did for an increase is we provided them documentation from a company out of New Orleans that did an in-depth study on his company and provided documentation saying for us to be profitable in a non-consensual tow, he would need storage to be around $131.
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: We provided the documentation with that.
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: They stuck their nose up at it and said there's no way.
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: There's no way.
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: It's like the documentation's here, the proof is here, the numbers are here.
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: So we suggest we just threw a Hail Mary and said okay, let's triple the storage rate, which still wouldn't be $131.
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: We got a lot of pushback from it Again, just like I told the lady in the news article that she clipped it out.
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: But I said it was merely a suggestion.
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: We provided you with the documentation.
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: It's your job as the commission to come up with a fair and compensatory rate where it's profitable for us and fair to the general public.
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: They don't want to come up with a number, they just want to say that no, we can't have that, and so that's the real issue that we're having with them.
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: Some of the other things that we're trying to do is get them to break up.
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: Right now there's just a it's recovery.
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: It's just lumped into the word recovery, and we're trying to get them to break it into simple recovery and difficult recovery and then specialized recovery, so there would be different rates and it's working, it's just taking a little time.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: Before we get too deep, I think we ought to go to the tape and listen to some of the news report on this subject.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: All right, jared, I'd like to take a quick break, since we're so deep into it, and when we come back from break I'd like to go to the news store from the local affiliate.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: There Works for me.
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• 25:26
  Speaker 1: Welcome back listeners.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: Of course, you know you're listening to the American Towing Recovery Institute podcast.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: Remember to like, review and share everywhere.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: By all means, let's listen to this tape.
• 25:40
  Speaker 7: Well, during a game day weekend like this one, towing companies around LSU are very busy.
• 25:44
  Speaker 7: Two on your side highlighted the practices of Riverside towing earlier this week, but towing companies have been battling with the state PSC to increase their towing fees since 2016.
• 25:55
  Speaker 7: Brittany Weiss is on the case.
• 25:58
  Speaker 8: Tow companies.
• 25:59
  Speaker 8: They're everywhere.
• 26:01
  Speaker 8: Hundreds of them in Louisiana, Many performing non-consensual tows.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: So just hold it right there.
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: How many towing companies in Louisiana, many performing non-consensual tows.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: there's 400 companies with potrols and already, as I'm listening to this again, one of the first things I noticed is they're mixing two issues together that really don't have anything to do with each other.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Um, yeah, the telling at the football game is the land use issue of zoning more than it, you know, and then the other issue with being a regulated state.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: So, anyway, it's just interesting how the news does that.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: Let's go ahead and roll.
• 26:59
  Speaker 8: This could cost you hundreds of dollars, and the rates just went up.
• 27:04
  Speaker 9: I think we have to really re-examine what we're doing here.
• 27:07
  Speaker 8: The Louisiana Public Service Commission recently approved a 15 percent increase for non-consensual tows.
• 27:13
  Speaker 8: The one before that was in 2016.
• 27:16
  Speaker 8: Commissioner Devante Lewis is the lone commissioner who opposed the change.
• 27:21
  Speaker 9: They are calculating what they believe they should make and they are asking government to ensure they make that.
• 27:26
  Speaker 8: At this November's commission meeting.
• 27:28
  Speaker 8: Towing company.
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: So when that one, when that one, commissioner Lewis, makes it sound like it's like a government handout for you guys, correct, that's what it sounds like when you hear that.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah that's right.
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: But in fact, all you're asking for is to let you legally raise your prices.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: Because they have control of it.
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: Because they have control of it Is that correct.
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: Yes, one of the things that we're trying to make them understand is we're providing a service for a government entity without guarantee to getting paid, and they can't seem to wrap their head around that them an entity without guarantee to getting paid, and they can't seem to wrap their head around that.
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: This is very edited to make it sound like you guys are the evil.
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: Absolutely.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: Hang on, you're not talking about podcasts, are you?
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: No, absolutely not, Not this time.
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: I mean, when you listen to this whole thing, it's almost like you guys are just hijacking people's cars and if they give you their wallet, then you get the car back.
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: When the company that's doing it has contracts with the private property that they're towing from, they have authorization to do so.
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, of property that they're towing from, they have authorization to do so.
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: The company has dealt with these people parking in their parking lots and go and do whatever they want to do because they're a business and they're limited parking in that area.
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: If people can't park at, just say, a store, they're going to go someplace else, they're not going to spend their money in that store.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: It's extra bottom line as well.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: People don't want to admit it, but it's a land use issue that should be solved by a competent zoning process in the city or town.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: Whatever situation you're dealing with, Go back, Chuck.
• 29:29
  Speaker 8: Companies are asking for more.
• 29:30
  Speaker 8: It's something that's been open and on the table with the commission since 2016.
• 29:35
  Speaker 8: Changes including a storage rate increase, one that will triple rates after five days from $31.50 per day for outside storage to $94.50 per day, and if you have a bigger vehicle, you can pay more.
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: Jared, this is where you're saying you just merely suggested that, right, it was just a suggestion Correct.
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: It was just a fact that it was something that you guys wanted.
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: And I'd like to also add originally we did not have the five days.
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: Into it, Commissioner Lewis called me and said is this up for negotiation?
• 30:10
  Speaker 4: I said, absolutely.
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: We're just literally trying to come up with something to get closer to breaking even or not losing as much money.
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: And he came up with the idea of let's give them five days at normal rate for the people that are getting towed away from game day and can't get there for a couple days.
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: And we were not and didn't have any objections to it.
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: And then he called the news and did the spin on it I like it sounds like the media at large and you're on a piece of america sure does all right, chuck, let's go again more 171 $171 a day.
• 30:47
  Speaker 8: I don't like it.
• 30:48
  Speaker 9: I mean, I think their fees are already high enough.
• 30:52
  Speaker 8: Olivia Gebhard was towed from the Northgate parking garage by Riverside Towing right before an LSU football game.
• 30:57
  Speaker 8: Her bill by Sunday morning was $382.
• 31:02
  Speaker 8: Is that something you can afford?
• 31:03
  Speaker 8: No ma'am.
• 31:03
  Speaker 8: So who would bail you out?
• 31:05
  Speaker 8: My grandpa Lewis says it's not only the tow companies that are responsible for this aggressive work ethic.
• 31:16
  Speaker 9: It's really businesses who are allowing them, and I think that's where we need to put some pressure on these private businesses and these apartment complexes who are letting Riverside and other tow companies do whatever they want.
• 31:22
  Speaker 8: Jared Varnado is president of Towing and Recovery Professionals of Louisiana.
• 31:27
  Speaker 8: It's made up of about 130 members.
• 31:30
  Speaker 8: We fight for the towing industry.
• 31:32
  Speaker 8: He grew up in the world of tow trucks at Varnado and Sons Towing LLC.
• 31:35
  Speaker 8: Grandfather started it in 1957.
• 31:38
  Speaker 8: I'm third generation owner of.
• 31:39
  Speaker 8: He's watched the family business grow, expand and adapt, Varnado says.
• 31:44
  Speaker 8: While his company's practices are less aggressive than others, his team is called to locations all over the state for non-consensual tows.
• 31:52
  Speaker 8: While prices everywhere are going up, their storage fees have not.
• 31:56
  Speaker 8: We're just asking for help from the Public Service Commission.
• 31:58
  Speaker 8: Varnados says the 15% increase has helped, but it won't solve their problems.
• 32:05
  Speaker 10: From 2020 to today, our insurance has went up over $150,000, with the same amount of drugs and zero losses.
• 32:14
  Speaker 8: Something else the commission is trying to change.
• 32:16
  Speaker 8: Of the hundreds of tow companies in Louisiana, there are many that don't take credit cards.
• 32:21
  Speaker 8: So is this?
• 32:22
  Speaker 8: This is primarily a cash business.
• 32:25
  Speaker 9: Yes, right now they are not required, and they have fought tooth and nail what form of payment.
• 32:30
  Speaker 8: Do they accept Only cash, no credit card, like if you got there you would have to leave to go get cash?
• 32:35
  Speaker 8: Varnadoe doesn't think tow companies should be forced to do this.
• 32:39
  Speaker 10: The dispute is usually in their favor, so we just lose out again.
• 32:42
  Speaker 8: The commission is faced with a tough job how to make changes and update rates while making sure they're justifiable and fair.
• 32:50
  Speaker 8: A task that's eight years in the making.
• 32:53
  Speaker 8: Two on your side, brittany Weiss, wbrz, news 2.
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: Well, she spent a lot of time telling you what you said, instead of letting you say it.
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: I will say she did a fairly good job.
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: She was trying to coach me through the interview.
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: She never I will say this she never tried to corner me, back me in a corner with saying something that would make me look bad.
• 33:17
  Speaker 4: She was just merely trying to get the answers.
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: Something I want to add to that storage.
• 33:23
  Speaker 4: That one of the things that we're trying to make them understand.
• 33:26
  Speaker 4: So we're getting I don't remember the exact numbers, but let's just say $30 a day for a regular vehicle.
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: It's an 8x20 parking spot For oversized storage which would be a tractor trailer.
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: The truck takes up two spots.
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: The trailer takes up a minimum of three spots.
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: If it's 53, it takes four and we're not even getting double the normal storage rate for an oversized vehicle.
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: We can't make them understand why we should be charging more.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the numbers speak for themselves there.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: I want to go back to the news lady.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: At the ending there I think she did a reasonable job of at least laying the facts out, that it's been eight years and that there needs to be a fair arbitration of the cost.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: I give her credit at the very end there she didn't really tie it together, but she threw them out there.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: She threw those points out there.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: I think hopefully reasonable individuals listening to that understand that if you're going to run safe trucks, pay your taxes pay your employees a living wage.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: There has to be a certain met to make that all happen.
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree.
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: I guess I take it a little bit differently because she made it more sympathetic because of the young lady who got her car towed and it was over $300.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: Oh God.
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: So she did play the sympathy card.
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: And there's a lot more of them out there than there are of us that actually understand what that cost is that you guys have for output.
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: Everybody just sees you guys putting your car on the bed of your truck and driving it off and they think that it's just seller signs just falling behind you.
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: They don't understand the liability of just putting somebody in that truck and sending it down the road, just the liability on that If something happens, what you as the owner of that company is responsible for.
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: So yeah, she did a fair job at the end of it, but she played the sympathy card too.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah absolutely that's my key sense.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, good point.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: So if you're in Louisiana and you're doing operations, tell us about the association, how to get involved, why people should get involved.
• 35:46
  Speaker 4: So the association is very important for the fact that we're the ones at the Public Service Commission fighting for raises and fighting for changes.
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: We're at the Capitol trying to get laws changed every year, every session.
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: One of the fights we had last year which we lost, but there was a win to it is issues with the scale house for the heavy-duty tow trucks.
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: Dot took over the permanent scales and they were issuing tow trucks gross over vehicle weight by towing a tractor or towing an 18-wheel or whatever.
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: And so I brought myself and a few others from the association brought to the Capitol and said hey, you know we need to be exempt or we need some kind of help.
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: And it made all the way to Senate before we lost.
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: But in that I gained a contact and a relationship with the chief of DOT police who read through the law, reached out to me, we talked about it, we worked things out and 90% of our issues are handled now just by the interpretation of law.
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: They're currently working with the permit offices, but Louisiana does not offer a permit for a tow truck, so there's no way for us to be legal over axle.
• 37:05
  Speaker 4: But he's working with the federal DOTD as well as the permit office to see if we can come up with something like Florida has, where you can buy an annual permit and be legal driving a tow truck.
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: So that was a win.
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: This year we're going to bring up some slow down, move over issues to the Capitol, see if we can get some federal funding for the police departments to help us with enforcement and working on a few other things that we feel like need to be brought up.
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: But, like I said, without the support of the towing companies there's no money for us to do that.
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: If you know anything about politics, it takes lobbyists, it takes attorneys, um, and they all want money and with limited members of the association the money's just not there.
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: So the brunt of um.
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: There's a few companies, um that that reach in their pockets and send us money when we need help, paying lobbyists or paying attorneys or whatever.
• 38:07
  Speaker 4: But it's not fair for us to keep the boat afloat when anybody could join and help out.
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: Okay, that nominal amount of money per year, because what is your yearly membership?
• 38:22
  Speaker 4: It's a dollar a day.
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: It's $365 a year.
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: A dollar a day, and even a Starbucks coffee.
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: So how?
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: do folks contact the Tonya Recovery Professionals of Louisiana?
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: They can call the office or they can contact me on my cell phone at any point in time.
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: I answer the phone 24 hours a day, so if you want to reach out to me, if you've got questions, feel free to call me.
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: My cell phone is 225-620-7452.
• 38:52
  Speaker 4: You can email me at Jared J-A-R-E-D M-Varnado, V-A-R-N-A-D-O at gmailcom, or you can call the office and speak to one of the girls there.
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: The office and speak to one of the girls there.
• 39:06
  Speaker 4: It is 225 664 4484.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: Okay, great.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: I want to thank you for your time today to let us know what's going on there.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: As always, we're looking forward to being down there in January for the class that we talked about earlier.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: The first segment.
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: I do have one question to ask real quick.
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: Wes Sorry about that, but what are your for this, for this thing that the news article is about?
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: What's your next step as far as like trying to get another, another raise, or?
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: Where do you think Stan was a public?
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: service commission.
• 39:47
  Speaker 4: So we actually have a another B&E Wednesday on the 20th.
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: We go to Baton Rouge, to their main office, and we'll basically have another hearing about it.
• 40:01
  Speaker 4: We invite as many towers as we can to get there.
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: Invite as many towers as we can to get there.
• 40:08
  Speaker 4: We try and keep it civil and normally keep the turnout minimal to not cause issues.
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: But I'm going to be honest with you after this.
• 40:19
  Speaker 4: You know the fact that Commissioner Lewis decided he needed to get the news involved.
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: We went all hands on deck.
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: We're pulling the gloves off.
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: You know silencing us is not going to work.
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: So it is at the the public service commission office.
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: Um, it's in the galvez building in downtown baton rouge I'm going to ask what office is he running for next, because it sounds very like he's doing his speeches oh, I'm, I'm not sure, but I I'm.
• 40:45
  Speaker 4: I strongly agree that this is a stepping stone into politics.
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: Yep, so you told us where was that, what was the name of that office building?
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: again, it's the Galvez Building when is this event?
• 40:59
  Speaker 4: On November 20th.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: What time of day?
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: So the meeting starts at 9 o'clock.
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: If you plan on attending, we ask that you get there at 8.30.
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: The address is 602 North 5th Street in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: Awesome.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: I hope you have a great turnout.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: Will you come back on and tell us what happens?
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: Absolutely Okay, great.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: I want to thank you for being a guest today.
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: Look forward to seeing you in January and talking to you before then.
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: Thank you.