An employee of Empire Parking Service booted my car in a parking lot on 506 Moreland Avenue at about 10:09 P.M., his reason being that only patrons of the stores could use the spaces. I would like to argue that I had no way of knowing that I was illegally parked.
First, the employee told me that there were two signs warning people not to park in these lots, and that the city had recently started fining people for this violation 3 months prior. The sign that the employee pointed me to was the one that I would have seen had it actually been facing toward Moreland traffic. Rather, the sign's text faced perpendicular to Moreland traffic, so that someone on the sidewalk across the street could see it. Apart from the fact that the sign wasn't even close enough to the street to be noticeable (or well illuminated), it would have been ludicrous, not to mention dangerous, for me to stop in the middle of Moreland to read the sign, had I actually known it existed.
Second, the employee himself had been present when I parked my car, not long after 9:00 P.M. Not only was I unaware that I was parking illegally at that moment, but the employee himself was not even wearing something that would have told me that he was an EPS employee.in fact—given that he was wearing jeans, a baseball cap, and a hooded sweatshirt—I simply thought he was the owner of one of the cars parked on either side of me (which, by the way, were both parked in spaces designated for customers only, while my space was blank). I find it mind-boggling that EPS's employees do not even have the common courtesy to alert someone that they are illegally parked. Furthermore, I find it even more astonishing that EPS itself does not even require its employees to wear some kind employee uniform; at the very least, they could have given the fellow an EPS hat.
Finally, and most importantly, is the fact that the lot was full of cars when I arrived after 9:00 P.M. Now, this was the night of the Little Five Points Halloween Parade, so I assumed the lot was full of partiers, since the store I parked in front of was closed. Thus, if parking in the lot was illegal, why was the lot open? If the stores are closed, there's no reason for anyone to be in the lots anymore; therefore, they ought to have been coned or chained off. Not only were both lot entrances open, but there was no attendant at either end to alert me, I could not even identify the EPS employee as such to ask him if the lot was legal, the spot I parked in was unmarked (whereas only the two spots on either side of me were designated as customer-only parking), and nearly every space in the lot was full. EPS did not even give the slightest hint that the lot might have been illegal. To me, EPS seems like nothing more than an underhanded company that profits through deceiving people.
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