SPOKANE, Wash. – For a couple of months, the vacant parking lot on the corner of 29th and Regal was discussed as the controversial site of a proposed Chick-fil-A – even drawing attention from Spokane City Council. On Tuesday afternoon, the site was swarmed with multiple Evergreen State Tow trucks, taking as many cars as they could, many belonging to employees in the strip mall next door.
“I first saw the tow trucks coming through the alleyway… they came flying so fast I thought they must be coming for a repo,” Nikki Crousser said. “One of the general managers in another building in the strip popped his head in our door and said ‘tow trucks are here, you have about two seconds to move your cars.’”
Crousser is a manager at one of the stores in the strip mall and a single, widowed mother. It cost her over $600 to get her car out the same night.
“I’ve been parking there for about five and a half months, since I started (working) here on the (South) Hill,” Crousser said. “It’s been emotionally and financially stressful. Not knowing if I was going to be able to pick up my child from school, how I was going to get home, how my employee was going to get home.”
“Yesterday it cost me $500 to go to work essentially,” Crousser’s employee D.J. Helton said.
Helton has worked in the area for two years, and was told by his first manager to park in that lot. However, the lot is owned by Douglass Properties, who called the tow trucks, while the strip mall property is owned by Joann Riegert.
“It’s a completely open, vacant lot,” Helton said. “I tried to go out there and converse with (the towers), to see if they could even do a drop fee or – being that they didn’t even lift it – to see if they could even just take the chains off. They refused to do both.”
He’s not wrong. The lot is expansive, with only a car maintenance shop tucked away in the back. There’s also very little to mark where the strip mall property starts and where the lot starts, adding to the confusion.
Helton and Crousser said their company has given them payday advances to help pay the impound fees, but are still left holding the bag.
“From my understanding it sounds like the two property owners have had a quarrel for the longest time,” Helton said. “It just sounds like we were caught in the crossfires of it and unfortunately it doesn’t sound like they’re going to do anything about it for us.”
NonStop Local reached out to Evergreen State Towing, who did not comment. NonStop Local also reached out to Douglass Properties, who said they did not have anyone available to comment in time for publication.
