Food trucks use junk cars to block prime parking spots, rack up unpaid fines

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In Washington, D.C., food trucks have become a thriving business. But there's a controversy brewing over vendors who use junk cars to hold spots for their trucks. They rack up thousands of dollars in unpaid tickets, but the cars rarely get towed.

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Fourteenth Street in the shadow of the Washington Monument is one of Washington's busiest streets and prime real estate for food trucks. But if you come here Tuesday through Sunday, chances are one or two of the travel lanes will be blocked by cars.

A Toyota Corolla has been blocking the inbound lane for days and Councilmember Mary Cheh calls it fraudulent. "It's a calculated thing where they have these junk cars and they have to take up the space that the food truck can occupy," Cheh told WJLA.

Night after night, day after day, these cars are mostly owned by food truck vendors, who get ticketed in the tow zone. Many of the cars don't even have valid license plates or have plates that aren't registered to the car they are on.

Chris Gelhardt runs the Department of Public Works, the agency in charge of parking enforcement. "We realize and we recognize the issue areas and we put things in place to try and deal with those and discourage the activity, but when you have business like this, that look at a parking ticket as a cost of doing business, that's where we are with it right now," said Gelhardt.

WJLA confronted a parking enforcement officer, asking why he wasn't calling a tow truck, so he made the call. Within minutes, eight private tow trucks arrived, but a spotter alerted the car's owners who were working on nearby streets. They appeared from all directions and blocked the tow trucks from hooking up their cars.

"I get the car, lock it, lift it up, come down to check the hand brake is on and then someone shows up. They open the door; they get in the car. And then we have a problem. They sit in the car. I can't drop the car. I cannot put it up, leave it, because he's sitting in the car," said one unidentified tow truck driver.

According to the vendors, the city rarely follows through on the tow.

"They are engaging in fraudulent activity and maybe we have to think of a strategy for that particular behavior in terms of maybe criminal violations," said Cheh.

The Washington City Council passed a measure increasing parking violations with every new offense, but it won't go into effect until next year at the earliest.

CNN/WJLA