Learn How To Gain Control Of Your Small Parking Lot

Posted on: 4 June 2015

Owning a business can be a bit of a struggle at times, especially if you have limited parking available in your lot. There are many small parking lots in big cities that are shared by multiple businesses. If your business shares a small parking lot with other businesses and you are having a problem with prolonged parkers taking up spaces, even though they are not visiting any of the establishments that are assigned the lot, it is important to take matters into your own hands. Use the following guide to learn how you and other small business owners can ensure that parking spaces in your parking lot are available to your customers.

Display Signs

You need to post signs all around the parking lot that states which businesses the parking lot is for and the length of time each spot can be used. You should limit the amount of time that each car can be parked in the lot to two hours. This gives everyone plenty of time to do whatever they need to do and then remove their car from the lot so that other patrons can use it. Be sure that the signs state that violators will be towed and list information for the towing company that will be handling the tows for you. You can make arrangements with a towing company in advance.

Monitor Parking

Once you have the signs in place, you need to monitor the lot. Have someone go out to the parking lot at the start of every new hour and take pictures of all of the cars in the parking lot. Be sure that the license plate of each car is visible in the picture and that the pictures are time stamped. You need to be able to prove which cars were parked in the parking lot at that specific time.

Enforce Towing

When someone violates the policy clearly displayed on the sign, have the car towed immediately (by a company such as Martinez Towing). Eventually the word will get out that your parking lot enforces towing and people will no longer use your parking lot improperly. It may take a few weeks or a few months, but word of mouth spreads quickly in cities and people will soon not to park there unless they are patrons of one of the local businesses.

If someone tries to take you to court for having their car towed, you can use the pictures you took to provide as evidence that you did nothing wrong. As long as the signs are visible and you can prove that the car was there for longer than it was supposed to be, then the judge will be able to clearly tell that the owner of the vehicle is the one who was in the wrong.

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